In India things are what they are, but at the same time they are doorways to the limitless world of spirit. This is enticing for an inquiring mind but it can be a problem because you will never mine the depths of this fascinating culture unless you are given the code to her apparently obscure, oftentimes bizarre and apparently irrational symbolism.

Wherever you turn you are reminded of the mystery that pervades every atom of the visible. When you meet a man named Shiva or a woman named Laxmi the mind journeys to the realm of myth, the world that gives form to what must forever remain formless.

The ‘big rigs,’ goods lorries, are the lifeblood of commerce but also serve as chariots of the Gods sporting names like Garuda Transport or Hanuman Trucking. Garuda, a massive golden eagle capable of supersonic flight, is the vehicle for the great god Vishnu, ‘the one who pervades everything.’ Hanuman, the monkey God flew through the air carrying a whole mountain of herbs from the Himalayas to revive the simian army of Sri Ram, an avatar of Vishnu who came to earth to reestablish Dharma. The boy at Shiva Shakti cleaners who tends your laundry is called Govinda, ‘the keeper of the light.’ An ochre clad sadhu or garlanded cow with a sandalwood paste third eye wanders past and your mind leaves the cares of the day to wander in the infinite.

Indians swim in a sea of symbolism. A wealth of positive associations settle and reassure an anxious mind, but visitors are invariably confused by the riotous display of arcane symbols. As early European visitors to the Subcontinent did a century ago, we may be inclined to deem her culture primitive or pagan, but we would be wrong.

To understand India’s symbols we must go back several thousand years before the birth of Christ and investigate the ideas enshrined in civilization’s oldest extant spiritual texts, the Vedas, ideas that account for the exceptional longevity and vitality of Indian culture. The Vedas say that the world that appears as insentient matter to our senses is actually ever-free limitless consciousness. It further contends that the beings in the world are non-separate from it, and therefore…again contrary to appearances…are not condemned to suffer, but, like it, enjoy limitless freedom. And while their innate freedom may be hidden from them, it can be rediscovered by contemplation on the truths contained in the Vedas. The freedom that is our birthright is called moksha, liberation and is defined as freedom from dependence on objects. An object is anything other than one’s self. The consistent realization of this freedom by untold millions over thousands of years accounts for the homogeneity and longevity of Vedic culture.

Though too subtle for an extrovert to grasp, the idea that our nature is ever-free will never die because it fulfills our deepest need. Vedanta, the ancient tradition that enshrines it, survived through a special educational system dedicated solely to the purpose of maintaining Vedic Dharma, a way of life that leads to freedom. But as India became agrarian and urban and society turned its attention to less lofty pursuits interest in Vedic Dharma declined. So to keep the Dharma alive, the seer-poets whose luminous minds revealed the Vedas came up with the Pauranas.

The Pauranas are called Dharma Shastras, scriptures on Dharma. They provide an outlet for the ethical and religious needs of the people and simultaneously present the knowledge of consciousness, the innermost self, in code. They convert cryptic Vedic mantras, which require considerable brain power to decipher even when unfolded by a sage, into action-packed stories and meaningful imagery. The Pauranas are the seer’s stealth technology and carefully embed Upanishadic ideas about the nature of reality into an exciting, baroque and romantic mythological facade. The confounding abundance of Gods and Goddesses that shock and bewilder India’s modern visitor are Pauranic deities.

The genius of the Puranas lies in the way they convert mundane experience and objects into symbols of the self. For example, from a geographical and material point of view mount Kailas is just one of the many snowcapped peaks in the Himalayan range. But because of the meaning invested in it by the Pauranas it is regarded by Indians as a spiritual Everest, even though it is not the highest peak.

Mountains are good self symbols for several reasons. They are relatively eternal.  The self is eternal. They jut above everything else, affording an unsurpassed point of view. The self is the highest part of our being, jutting above the plains and valleys of our body/mind territory affording us unlimited vision. They are unmoving like the non-dual self, which could only move were there something other than it to move into. They are silent like the self, ‘the unstruck sound.’

Rivers too have been converted to self symbols because they give life, nourishing everything with which they come in contact. In fact the elements (air, fire, water, earth and space) are not only the self in material form but, for the purposes of worship and contemplation, function as self symbols, the meditation on which may open the door to the shining world of self knowledge. In South India five major temples are dedicated to the worship of the self in the form of the five ‘great’ elements. For example, there is a temple in Southern Andra Pradesh at a town named Kalahasthi that represents the air element. Air, like water, is an appropriate self symbol because we cannot live without it. It is our ‘life’s breath.’ Like the self, it is formless and unseen and ‘moves in mysterious ways.’

Animals, plants and minerals represent spiritual truths. The elephant, because of keen intelligence and long memory has come to represent Vedic wisdom. Gold, because of its great value and non- tarnishing quality and silver for its reflective ability are well-known self symbols. Colors too are imbued with meaning. White, for its similarity to light, is an obvious self symbol. And black, because it is opposite white, symbolizes ignorance of the self. But black in certain contexts sometimes symbolizes the self because, as the self encompasses everything within its panoramic awareness, black includes all the colors of the spectrum. Because the relatively infinite sky is blue, blue has come to symbolize the limitless self. Red typically symbolizes passion, in this case the self as the passionate dancing energy, shakti, that creates the universe.

According to ancient Tamil sources a temple town in Andhra Pradesh named Kalahasti has been known as the ‘Kailas of the South’ for slightly more than two thousand years and the small river on whose banks it sits, the ‘Ganges of the South.’ Kailas is perhaps India’s most revered spiritual symbol. It is the abode of Shiva, from whose head, according to legend, the Ganges is said to flow. Shiva, ‘that which is auspicious at all places, times and in all circumstances’ is a symbol of the self and the Ganges flowing from his head represents the awakened mind. A mind sourced in spirit is a river of immeasurable power and life- giving goodness. The claim that Kalahasti is the ‘Kailas of the South’ simply means that the small hill near the temple is to be taken as the spiritual equivalent of the Himalayan Kailas.  Likewise, the small river flowing in a northerly direction beside the temple is to be taken as the mighty Ganges.

Even the cardinal directions take on spiritual significance in Pauranic culture. Obviously context should be taken into account when divining the meaning of a symbol, but north, for example, is said to be the abode of the self because from its unchanging frozen immortal world, one looks out on the fecund, changing ‘southern’ world of time and death. The idiom to “head south’ means to go downhill, to decay, the most essential characteristic of the world in which we struggle to find lasting meaning. The God Dakshinamurthy whose name means ‘the one facing south’ and whose idol is installed in the Kalahasti Temple, faces south. East represents the dawning of wisdom, the sun being another common self symbol. The symbolic use of direction accounts for the idea of building temples at the point on a river where its meandering points it back to its source. The holiest city in India, Benaras, is built on a stretch of the Ganges that flows northward toward the Himalayas, the idea being that when the mind turns back toward its source, the self realizes its innate divinity.

The Vedas posit four ends for which human beings strive in their search for happiness: pleasure (kama), security or wealth (artha), duty (dharma) and freedom (moksha). These universal motivations are represented by four deities facing in the four cardinal directions. Shiva in the form of Dakshinamoorthy represents wealth, the sense of prosperity (dakshina) that accompanies self knowledge. At Kalahasti the Goddess Gnanaprasoonamba (the giver of knowledge) represents great pleasure conferred on the one who is set free by self knowledge. The deity Kalahastishwara (the lord of Kalahasti) faces west and symbolizes liberation. Liberation, the death of one’s sense of limitation upon rediscovering the self, is the final stage of life just as setting is the sun’s last act before it disappears over the horizon. Unfortunately the temple literature from which this information was gleaned neglected to include mention the name of the forth deity.

The most revered and universal symbol of the self is the human form, ‘man cast in the image of God’ and its spiritual significance is difficult to overestimate. Rather than conceive of us as tainted sinful human creatures, the Upanishad tells us that we are divine. It says, “That which you worship there is this that you see here.” The ineffable formless self perceived by mystics in the heart cave is this whole world and everything in it. While Hindu deities often sport dozens of arms and animal heads their essential forms are recognizably human. Probably no other idea accounts for the astonishing fact that one billion people stuffed into a land mass one third the size of the United States undoubtedly handle their lives more confidently than their prosperous Western counterparts.

The plethora of symbols that enhance temple culture not only point to the self, they reveal the deep psychology of Vedic culture. According to the Vedas human beings suffer, not because they are sinners, but because they have unwittingly separated themselves from their spiritual source, the self.         Furthermore, they state that everyone, consciously or unconsciously, strives to rediscover this source of wholeness and peace.

Although there are many variations, one archetype illustrating this truth is marriage and divorce. In the Ramayana, perhaps the most popular Purana, Lord Rama’s (the self) wife Sita (his loving peaceful mind) is deluded by a golden deer (the sense objects) and abducted by a ravenous demon (the ego) who carries her off to a foreign country (a selfish materialistic ‘state’ of mind). Rama sets off on a long and arduous journey (the spiritual path) to regain her. Only with the help of an intelligent monkey (devotion) can he locate her. He kills the demon with a whirling discus of light (the teaching “Tat Tvam Asi” which indicates the identity of the individual self and the self) and reclaims his wife (attains enlightenment).

The Gods as Experiential Entities

The purpose of the Upanishads is to awaken the mind to the self. In the Mandukya Upanishad a discussion of the self and its relationship to the waking, dream and deep sleep states of consciousness unfolds. It states that with reference to the self, which it defines as reality, the other three states are ‘unreal.’ Reality is what exists before, during, and after time and what illumines and transcends the waking, dream, and deep sleep states. Because something is unreal does not mean that it cannot be experienced. A mirage, for example, is experienced as water even though it doesn’t exist as water. Our three ‘normal’ states of consciousness are experientially or apparently ‘real’ but have no lasting reality because they are caught in the web of time, continually dissolving and recreating themselves.

Scientific materialism, the dominant thought system in the West, only accepts sense information as valid knowledge and therefore defines reality in terms of waking state experience. And conversely, it dismisses as unreal experiences that belong to the dream state, the mind, although with the advent of psychology, which is lobbying to become a science, this view is under attack.

Is subjective experience unreal? From the scientific materialist point of view, yes. And by the Upanishadic definition, yes. But if we use the Upanishadic definition, the waking state is as unreal as the dream state. Or, to express it differently, assuming ignorance of the self, the dream state is as real as the waking state. Considering this, it is not surprising that the Indian mind views subjective phenomena as at least as real, probably more, than waking state events. Although it is not ultimately real, dismissing subjective experience as unreal creates a serious problem because, although the body does not function in the dream state, the mind functions in the waking state. Therefore, waking state experience is an amalgam of sense perceptions and subjective activity: emotions, feelings, beliefs, ideas, memories, dreams, visions, judgments, discriminations, etc. If anything, inner experience is more valuable, much more ‘us’ than anything that happens in ‘reality’ outside. Because how we see and feel about things conditions how we survive in life, our feelings and thoughts need be understood and accepted, not dismissed as unreal.

Temple worship in India is not just about intellectually divining the meaning of the plethora of self symbols one finds enshrined there or understanding profound Upanishadic ideas as they outpicture in stone and ritual, but of experiencing the self through symbols. Just as people attend sporting matches or their local pubs to experience a different state of mind, the temple experience transforms the mundane mind into a devotional mind by giving it ‘darshan,’ a vision of the self through the deities enshrined there.

How does this ineffable, apparently untouchable, formless reality become so easily available for experience? Because it is ongoing in the hearts of everyone. And how does a given temple deity awaken one to it?

One of the most touching temple experiences is a mother teaching a toddler to prostrate in front of a deity. The child does not understand what it is doing but accommodates the mother out of duty or love. Nonetheless the prostration does not change its state of mind. But slowly, over time, as its mind develops, it becomes aware of the mother’s devotional feelings and temple atmosphere. Slowly it absorbs the devotional experience by osmosis. And since this experience occurred in a temple in the presence of a deity or at home in the puja (worship) room, it associates the experience with the ritual of worship and the symbol on the altar. When this state of mind is established subconsciously any familiar symbol can awaken it. And because it feels so good, the act of worship is repeated over and over, deepening the feeling of love.

How does this work? Obviously, since the self pervades every atom of the universe and every thought and feeling in our minds, we need not run to the temple to experience it. In fact everyone has unconsciously developed devotional habits and worships deities of their own making: nature, a film star, a guru, money…you name it. And whether our deities are sacred or secular, the devotional mechanism is built into the human heart.

Deities work because the self, our own consciousness, knows what we need even when we don’t. “The light knoweth the darkness but the darkness knoweth not the light.” When a devotee approaches a deity he or she typically wants something, the solution to a problem, for instance. When approaching someone who has something we want we assume a humble anticipatory state of mind. And when we lay out our problems the mind is free of them…at least temporarily. And in that problem free moment the peace and bliss of the self floods the heart. We assume that this feeling of peace and bliss comes from the deity in front of us but in reality the deity was only a catalyst, unlocking the door to the self. When I feel good problems tend to no longer be problems. Additionally, when I feel good the people who can solve my problem are often attracted to me and may feel inclined to help me solve them.

The temple and its deities need not be used exclusively to remove obstacles. They may be used to express appreciation of God, the self. Contrary to what a Westerner might imagine, many in India feel grateful for who they are and what (little) they have and use the temple to express their gratitude. When this attitude is enshrined in the mind, even a little seems like a lot. Consequently, India’s temple complexes, with few exceptions, are charged fields of devotional energy.

To enjoy this energy, you must leave your mental and emotional baggage behind. Several rituals help the devotee enter sacred space. The most common involves discarding ones footwear outside the temple. At some temples it is customary to remove one’s hair which is considered to be a symbol of ego. It is very common to touch the threshold when entering the temple to show respect for the Lord.

Invariably the first deity one confronts at the temple entrance is the elephant God Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. One should ask that all obstacles to a successful experience of the Lord, the self, be removed before beginning the symbolic journey to the inner sanctum where one comes face to face with the deity, one’s own inner self.

Tiruvannamalai

The temple at Tiruvannamalai, dedicated to the fire element, represents the temple as spiritual journey, a movement from change to the changeless, the passage from time to the timeless. The temple is a haven of peace in the midst of the chaos and frantic motion of the typically Indian town, a place where one can journey into the self.

The spiritual journey is a movement through five layers or levels of ones being. These five layers are described in the Upanishad as (1) the food sheath, the physical body, (2) the breath or vital air sheath, our physiological processes, (3) the emotional body, our sensate, feeling nature, (4) the mind or intellect sheath, and (5) the bliss sheath. Passing through these, transcending them, one arrives at the inner sanctum, the self. At the entrance to each of the temple’s five levels one finds a large black stone cow contentedly staring toward the inner sanctum. This cow, Nandi (bliss) represents a clear, purified devotional mind turned inward and worshipping the self. The fire temple is situated on the slope of the holy mountain Arunachala with the lingam closest to the summit suggesting an ascent from the lower to the higher, from time to timelessness, from self ignorance to self knowledge.

South Indian temples are typically surrounded by very high square or rectangular stone walls that form a protective barrier around the deity just as the human body, for which they are a symbol, surrounds and protects the self within.¹ Access to the temple is gained through four gopurams, gates, which tower above city and are noticeable from great distances, calling the devotee to worship. The word gopuram means ‘city of light” because they are usually adorned with sculptures of hundreds of Pauranic deities. The deities or Gods represent the luminous self shining in the mind. The four gopurams represent the four

elements, gateways to the self.² The elements are ‘gateways’ because

we cannot journey into the self until we have understood the nature of the world in which we live.

Important as it is, the fire temple at Tiruvannamalai is overpowered by the holy mountain Arunachala, one of India’s most revered spiritual symbols. As noted above, mountains are self symbols for several reasons. Apart from that, however, the word ‘arunachala’ tells us all we need to know. ‘Aruna’ means dawn or light and ‘achala’ is a compound. ‘Chala’ means moving or changing and ‘a’ is a negative. So the word means ‘the unchanging light.’ The self is the unchanging light that illumines everything, including the light of the sun.

The temple at Tiruvannamalai is called Arunachalishwara, (the Lord of the unchanging light). The self is often referred to as “the fire of consciousness.” Fire is an appropriate symbol because it produces light and light illumines objects just as the self illumines our minds and, through the senses, the world around us. At every shrine leading to the inner sanctum, and indeed at many seemingly unlikely places throughout

¹ Symbolism pervades every aspect of temple architecture. Temple walls are typically adorned with red and white stripes. Red stands for the feminine, the Goddess, who is in turn a symbol of energy and matter. And white symbolizes Shiva, pure consciousness.

² The four entrances may also be taken to represent the four directions. The meaning is that one can approach the deity from any path.

any temple, small oil and camphor fires burn. When a devotee feels the need to worship, he or she will contribute his or her camphor to the fire to keep the fire alive. On full moon nights, when upwards of one million devotees circumambulate Arunachala, one can witness large fires at significant places on the path around which scores of devotees are clustered in devotional fervor “taking the light.” Taking the light is a beautiful ritual indicating the desire to receive blessings from the self in the form of Arunachala. The devotee offers his or her heart, symbolized by the white wafer, into the fire, the self. With each contribution the ‘self’ fire blazes and the devotee bends (surrenders) to ‘receive the light,’ by symbolically scooping up the fire in his or her hands and washing his or her face with it. In its deepest sense the ritual acknowledges the simple truth that our intelligence, our lives, are not separate from the one fiery intelligence illumining the whole cosmos. This intelligence or “fire’ not only illumines our bodies and minds but has taken form as the elemental world and is, therefore, to be honored. Accordingly, the temple at Tiruvannamalai has been designated the ‘fire’ temple.

The story behind the mountain told in the Shiva Purana is exceptionally mystical and is undoubtedly responsible for its enduring fame. Long before human beings appeared on the face of the earth, Brahma, the four-headed Creator, was flying through the transcendental skies on his swan when he came to Vaikuntha, the heavenly abode of Vishnu. Vishnu, attended by millions of Gods and Goddesses, his eyes half open, was lying blissfully on the endless coils of the serpent Sesha who was floating in an infinite ocean of milk.

Brahma was annoyed when Vishnu did not open his eyes and acknowledge his presence so he said, “Who do you think you are that you can afford not to pay homage to the Creator of everything? Without me you would not even exist.”

Vishnu, irritated that his sleep of yoga had been disturbed, replied, “I think you are slightly confused. Perhaps you did not notice this lotus growing out of my Divine navel. If you look closely you will see a small God with four faces suspiciously similar to yours sitting in the middle. The fact, my dear friend, is that only I am self created and you are merely in charge of the creation of the universe. You are little more than one of my executives, albeit an important one.”

“What rubbish,” said Brahma, “this lotus with me sitting on it is just the product of your yoga maya, as unreal as a hare’s horn.”

The argument became increasingly heated and the Gods witnessing it were concerned for the welfare of the world should they actually come to blows, so Indra, king of the Gods,³ suggested that they consult Shiva, who, he assured them, would resolve the issue.

So they all journeyed to Kailas, the abode of Shiva, who agreed to settle the dispute.

“See here,” he said, casting down a blinding blazing column of white light that stretched upwards and downwards as far as the eye could see, “whoever can find the end of this column is indeed the greatest.”

Brahma, certain that he would easily reach the end, assumed the form of a swan and began to ascend the column. But it proved to be much taller than he thought. In fact he became slightly discouraged after flying at supersonic speed for several thousand eons with still no end in sight. Just as he was becoming tired and considered abandoning his search he encountered a lovely flower emitting an intoxicating perfume falling slowly down the column.

He flew over and the flower said to him, “I am the Kartigai flower falling from the head of Shiva. I have been falling for infinite aeons and will never reach the bottom. You cannot reach the top.  Go back and tell Shiva that you have reached the summit. I will back you up. Even falsehood is recommended in times of distress.”

This idea appealed to Brahma who flew leisurely back down the column accompanied by the Kartigai flower.

In the meantime, Vishnu, who had assumed the form of boar and had begun digging down the column, also became discouraged after many aeons and decided to give up his quest. He turned around and began ascending, arriving back in Kailas at the same time as Brahma. Both stood in awe in front of the wonderful flaming form of Shiva.

“How did it go?” Shiva addressed the Gods.

Vishnu replied, “Great indeed you are! I bow to you, Shiva, whose glory can never be measured. I bored for aeons and aeons and was unable to find the end of this blazing column of light. ”

Shiva turned to Brahma who said, “Unlike this inept fellow, I found the end. It’s true, this is an impressive column of light and I had to fly rather fast to reach the end, but it was really no big deal for a creative energetic person like me.”

The Kartigai flower nodded in assent.

Shiva smiled inwardly and transformed himself into a gigantic terrifying monster that reached down and caught Brahma by the neck.

“You lie,” he thundered. “And for this lie I am going to remove all four of your arrogant heads. You’re finished!”

³ The divine mind.

Fearing for the world should the Creator be destroyed, the Gods and Goddesses fell at the feet of the monster and pleaded for mercy. Shiva, the fount of all compassion, returned to this true form, recanted and released Brahma to a sigh of relief from the deities.

“It is not right to lie to make yourself look good,” said Shiva. “Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my wrath. Death is a punishment that does not fit the crime. However you should not go scot-free. Therefore, I decree that henceforth you will not be worshipped in any temples on earth. Nonetheless, I can see that you are contrite so I also decree that even though a sacrifice is completed according to the scriptural injunctions, it will not bear fruit without you.”

As they stood before him, Brahma and Vishnu saw the infinite column of light transform itself into Shiva himself. They realized his (and their own) true nature and immediately began to worship him.

Shiva said, “Oh, devotees, I am infinite, the same in everyone and everything. I pervade every atom of the universe. This column of light, which you have realized is not different from me, is a fitting symbol of me. It should be worshipped every day. But because only Gods can directly behold my radiance, I encase this column inside a red mountain and place it on earth for the benefit of human beings. This mountain is the only true means of enjoyment. Viewed, touched, or meditated upon, it removes the ignorance that causes human beings to suffer. Many holy centers will spring up around this mountain. Prayers offered to it will be fulfilled. To live at its foot and see me in it, grants salvation.”

Brahma and Vishnu said, “Ocean of mercy. Forgive our arrogance. You are the one God that everyone is entitled to know. You are the primordial fire without beginning and end. You can only be worshipped in your linga state. You are the holy mountain Arunachala. We prostrate to you.”

This myth bears scrutiny because it expresses several spiritual truths, the first of which, non-creationism, is unique to the Vedic tradition. Non-creationism means that if this is a non-dual reality everything that we see is nothing but the self and is therefore uncreated and unmade because the self is uncreated. The idea of a Creator, God, depends on the idea of a creation. If this is so, why is does there seem to be a creation apart from me, the self? Because, the sages say, you are looking at the self through a deluded mind. And this mind is interpreting or ‘creating’ non-dual reality as if it were a dualistic universe locked in time.

At the same time, since only those who know the self know this, the creation is accepted as having a ‘qualified’ reality and therefore a creator is admitted. The lotus springing out of Vishnu’s navel bearing the four-headed Brahma, the Creator, illustrates this truth.  We see it also in the relationship of Shiva, the primary self symbol, to Brahma and Vishnu, the Creator and Preserver. Clearly, they do not enjoy his lofty status.

But the myth is really about self realization, the means of self realization, the main obstacle to self realization, and spiritual self delusion.

Self realization is depicted here as a journey to discover the end of an endless column of light. The efficacy of two traditional techniques, meditation and inquiry, are examined and their limitations exposed. Brahma riding on a swan symbolizes transcendental meditation, a flight into the spiritual sky, attempting to take the mind beyond itself for the purpose of self realization. Vishnu riding on a boar represents the process of self analysis: asking questions, boring into the self, trying to figure it out with the mind. According to the myth, both are limited means, incapable of delivering the spiritual goods. This is not to say that either cannot work, just that the purpose of this myth, and indeed most of the Puranas (which were designed to bring Vedic wisdom to the masses) is to develop devotion, in this case to Shiva.

The Kartigai flower that has ‘fallen’ from the head of Shiva represents a mind ‘fallen from grace,’ one bereft of self knowledge. After years of spiritual seeking before reaching the goal it is natural to become discouraged and listen to the lies of the separated or ‘fallen’ ego. This ego, which is prone to self delusion, suggests that the seeker claim enlightenment before it is attained. The lie prompts a severe reaction from the self which cannot stand untruth. Compassion, however, is depicted as greater than truth and Shiva relents. Vishnu, who represents integrity, is not rewarded because virtue is its own reward.

As a result of their quest both Brahma and Vishnu, who represent a mind prepared by spiritual practice, enjoy a darshan, direct experience of the self. The story says they “saw the infinite column of light transform itself into Shiva himself. They realized his (and their own) true nature and immediately began to worship him.” Once they have begun to experience the self, Shiva cements their self knowledge by describing his nature. “I am infinite, the same in everyone and everything. I pervade every atom of the universe.” And lest they forget who they are he proscribes a path for reawakening; worship my linga, Arunachala.

Ramanashram and the Mountain Walk

As predicted in the Purana many holy centers have sprung up around the mountain, the foremost of which in modern times is Ramanashram, named after ‘the sage of Arunachala,’ Ramana Maharshi, who experienced the self as a boy of seventeen and lived at the foot of the mountain all his life. Ramana was an exceptionally luminous and compassionate sage who in the fifty years since his death has nearly attained the status of a deity. Consequently his ashram and the mountain caves where he meditated attract people from around the world.

Circumambulation of the mountain is thought to confer many blessings and on full moon nights hundreds of thousands of devotees regularly journey from all over the region to make the ten mile walk. At a particularly significant spot on the inner path a small temple dedicated to the hunter saint Kannapan sits on top of a large rock. The place is known by meditators as an energy vortex and is meant to enjoy special sanctity owning to its location at the base of a small hillock known as Shiva’s feet. The feet are of great significance in Vedic culture because they symbolize under standing, in this case knowledge of the self.

According to legend Kannapan was a devotee of Shiva who worshipped twice daily, before and after work. To make the lingam, a black monolith, seem more lifelike two eyelike reflective circles are often placed several inches below it rounded top. When the lingam is adorned with flowers, the dark inner sanctum, seen from the distance of a few meters, appears to have a living deity staring out at the devotees. The purpose of this is to give the devotee the feeling that the Lord is sending blessings through the eyes. The technical term for this experience is ‘darshan,’ seeing the Lord. Or, alternatively, letting the Lord ‘see’ you. When the devotee locks his or her eyes on the Lord, the mind becomes quiet and blessings in the form of peace or love floods into the devotee’s heart from the self within.

One evening after the temple was closed, the lingam’s eyes, which were affixed with a crude glue, came loose and fell to the floor. When Kanappan, a simple rustic, came for his morning darshan he became distressed because the Lord was unable to give darshan. Such was his love of Shiva that he walked into the inner sanctum, took an arrow out of his quiver, cut out one of his own eyes and tied it on the lingam. The story goes that he was about to remove his remaining eye when Shiva appeared out of the lingam and granted him liberation, thus sparing his eyesight. The small temple on top of the hill at Kalahasti is also dedicated to Kannapan who has attained the status of a deity.

Kanchipuram, The Earth Element

A creation and redemption myth stands behind the Ekambishwara (the lord of the indivisible oneness) temple at Kanchipuram. The temple is dedicated to the earth element because it was on earth that the Goddess Parvati, the wife of Shiva was sent to atone for the sin that started the world, the separation of matter and spirit. The myth, which humorously and elegantly presents the idea of separation from and re- union with the Divine, is classic Vedanta in the form of the following story.

The state of things before the creation of the universe is symbolized by the happy ‘heavenly’ married life of Shiva and his consort, Parvati, the Divine Mother. In this primordial ‘state’ energy/matter is potential in consciousness. It says in the text that Parvati served her three-eyed lord with immense love. She worshipped him with a myriad of offerings. To keep her from becoming attached to him, Shiva, who enjoyed her love, feigned indifference, causing Parvati to become despondent.

One day Rati, the winged god of love, who had the power to enchant all living things, came across Parvati moping in her garden. Upon learning the cause he offered to help her cast a spell on Shiva. So he taught her how to adorn her lovely body and move in the seductive ways that always attract men. When she had learned everything necessary to capture a man’s heart he encouraged her to try her wiles on Shiva. One day as she was charming and enchanting her Lord she playfully placed her hands over his three eyes. Suddenly the cosmic dance stopped and whole universe was plunged in darkness. The myriad cosmic suns and moons refused to shine and creatures fell into a sleepy hypnotic trance. And even though she kept them there for a few seconds darkness reigned on earth for aeons.⁴

When she removed them an immense radiant beam of light burst forth, reducing a gleeful Rati, who had been hovering in front of Shiva watching the seduction, to ashes and causing the whole cosmos to once again pulsate and vibrate with life.

Because of his immense compassion for the universe and to teach his passionate young wife a lesson Shiva said, “Your innocent mind was led astray by the God of love. And had your intemperate act been without consequence I would forgive you immediately, but see the suffering it has brought on the creation. Therefore, to atone for your sin, I am beaming you down to earth where you will do intense meditation for the purpose of becoming reunited with me.

In the twinkling of an eye Parvati found herself sitting under a mango tree on the banks of the River Kumba. Feeling the immense loss of Shiva intently she entered the shallows near the tree, fashioned a

⁴ This doctrine of the cosmic blackout, or Maya, is a rough equivalent of the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin.

lingam out of the wet sand and began to worship it, praying that she would be reunited with her Lord.⁵

To test her devotion to his earthly form Shiva created a flash flood and sent it roaring downstream.⁶ Instead of running for high ground, the Divine Mother wrapped herself around the lingam to protect it from the raging torrent. When the waters subsided the lingam was intact and she heard Shiva’s voice booming from the sky, “You have passed your first test. To make your devotion perfect you must do further penance at the holy Mountain Arunachala.”⁷

Another Arunachala Story

Accordingly the Divine Mother, full of devotion for her Lord, journeyed to Arunachala. She climbed to the top of the mountain where she sat in the lotus posture, withdrew her senses into her mind and began to search within for the place from which the “I” arises. She became aware of a powerful radiant silence and sank into deep meditation on it.

A powerful demon, Mahishasura,⁸ flying by in his aerial chariot noticed her sitting there, glowing with ethereal beauty and became enflamed with lust.⁹ His unwanted attentions so angered Parvati that she assumed the form of the wrathful goddess Kali, mounted a lion, and with a thousand weapons in her thousand hands, began to battle with the demon. The battle raged for many years until the Goddess gained the upper hand and severed the demon’s head with one stroke of her gigantic sword.¹⁰

She resumed her meditation with renewed concentration, worshipping Shiva with a terrifying passion. It created so much heat that even Agni, the god of fire, was forced to move from his home atop the mountain. The heat scorched the earth for miles around, killing all the plants and forcing the animals to leave. Such was her desire to be reunited with Shiva that her energy turned the mountain (and indeed the whole earth) into a shimmering molten golden mass of fire.

The situation became so critical that the gods and goddesses who had been drawn there by her immense devotion became concerned that

⁵ When we separate ourselves from the self the desire to return leads us to religion and we begin to worship our chosen deity.

⁶ The flash flood is the subconsious resitance to the desire for union with God. It threatens to wash away our devotional resolve.

⁷ When the vasanas, one’s subconscious tendencies try to wash away one’s vision of the self one needs to cling tightly to one’s symbol until the waters subside.

⁸ Maha means big. An asura is a demon. The big lustful demon in everyone is the ego.

⁹ Once the devotee withstands the flood of negativity then next spiritual trial is the confrontation with the ego.

¹⁰ Discrimination, the power to separate the Real (the self) from the unreal (the ego.)

the three worlds would be totally immolated and went en masse to Kailas to speak to Shiva.

“Obeisance to the self-born one from whom the three worlds with all the animate and inanimate beings have originated,” they said. “Profuse obeisance the great self, destroyer of Karma,¹¹ illuminator of everything that is.¹²”

“Get to the point,” said Shiva who did not enjoy flattery even though it was all true.

“The heat from the Divine Mother’s penance is so intense that it threatens to destroy the universe that you created,” they said. “Please do something to save the three worlds.”

“This whole business started when she fell under the spell of that little devil, Rati, the god of Love,” said Shiva. “It is a great sin to leave the bliss of union with me for paltry emotional excitements. See the trouble she has faced trying to get back to me. It is a lesson to you all. She must pass one more test before her work is finished. Go to Arunachala and see if she desires anything other than union with me.”¹³

They approached the mountain and said to her, “For what purpose are you doing this meditation? It is threatening to destroy the three worlds. Don’t you think you are behaving recklessly?”

“Don’t laugh, when I tell you this,” Parvati said, “but it is my ardent desire to marry Lord Shiva.”

The Gods rolled their eyes and said, “Come, come my dear girl, how is that possible? You are a mere mortal and Shiva is the Lord of the whole cosmos. How can such a union ever take place?”

“You don’t understand because you are only Gods” she replied. “I love only him. I will prevail. Even if the heat from this longing destroys life as we know it, I will not relent. Please go away.”

Seeing that she was ready to be liberated, Shiva appeared in the guise of a Brahmin priest and asked what she was doing there, meditating so one-pointedly.

Parvati honored the Brahmin and said, “Please do not think me presumptuous O learned Brahmin, but I wish to wed none other than Lord Shiva. Unfortunately I have been meditating on him for aeons to no avail. He seems quite indifferent to my prayers. Therefore I will end my life. Without Shiva life is worthless.”

So saying she created a blazing fire and prepared to jump into it, much to the surprise of everyone.

“Before you leap,” the Brahmin said, please listen to what I have to say. “I know Shiva very well. He is not worthy of you. He is completely

¹¹ Knowledge that one is the self destroys the tendency to try to attain happiness through activities.

¹² The self is that because of which whatever is known is known.

¹³ Enlightenment will not happen until all the other desires have been sublimated into the desire for it.

lacking in manners. He sleeps in graveyards and wanders about clad only in a deer skin. His matted locks are filthy and full of lice. He associates with ghosts and goblins. He has no pedigree and is of such low status no caste will claim him. Consequently he is unemployed and unemployable. So what will a fine, cultured woman like you do for friends and money? Furthermore, he is a heartless bastard, incapable of love. Do you know that he reduced the God of love to ashes with one glance from his third eye? He’s a beast through and through. I suggest that you reconsider.”

“Ha!” said Parvati scornfully, “You say you know Shiva but you cannot know Shiva. He is beyond all your paltry means of knowledge. You say he has a certain form but you are quite mistaken. He is beyond all forms. His true form is formlessness. He fills every atom of the universe with his being. He is pure and beyond reproach. All the gold in the three worlds cannot begin to measure one small fraction of his immense wealth. He is the only friend I want! Because he has not answered my prayers I will end my life.”

Hearing her fervent words the Brahmin melted into nothingness leaving Shiva standing before her in all his glory. “Because of your pure devotion I will serve you through all eternity. Come assume your rightful place next to me.”

Parvati circumamulated the mountain and melted into the side of Shiva.

Chidambaram – The Cosmic Dance

The myth behind the temple at Chidambaram shares elements of other myths and introduces a new idea, the cosmic dance. The story begins when Shiva and Vishnu appear in the forest at Chidambaram to

confront a group of sages¹⁴ whose spiritual wisdom has made them

exceptionally arrogant. Shiva appears as a Brahmin renunciate and Vishnu as a beautiful woman. All the locals are smitten by their celestial beauty but the sages are unimpressed because they know who they really are. To show their superiority the sages raise a sacrificial fire from which a fierce tiger springs on Shiva. Shiva subdued and skinned the animal, wearing its hide as a glorious ornament. Next the sages caused a huge snake to emerge from the fire and attack Shiva who tamed it and wrapped it around his neck. The rishis final weapon was a powerful dwarf who Shiva also subdued. With the dwarf writhing on the ground beneath his feet Shiva began a victory dance, much to the delight of the Gods who had gathered to witness his confrontation with the sages.

¹⁴ A sage is called a rishi. A rishi is a seer, one who ‘sees’ or knows the self. The Pauranas consistently counsel against the spiritual ego, the person who makes a story out of his or her enlightenment.

When Adishesha, the Cosmic Serpent on whose infinite coils Vishu reclines in Heaven, heard of Shiva’s dance, he immediately incarnated as the sage Patanjali and came to the forest to witness the dance. There he met a sage who, owing to his great devotion to Shiva had obtained tiger’s claws for hands and feet. The claws permitted him

to climb up trees and suck the nectar from the flowers.¹⁵    The two of

them journeyed through the forest until they found Shiva dancing ecstatically in a grove near the shine of Kalika Devi.

Kalika Devi, also known as Shakti, was unhappy to see another God dancing in her territory and attracting so much attention, so she challenged him to a dance competition which Shiva won. His dance produced so much bliss that his audience would not go home so he agreed to perform it forever in the inner sanctum of the temple at Chidambaram.

‘Chid’ means consciousness, the self, the essence of things, and ‘ambara’ means space or place. So the word means ‘the place where consciousness dwells,’ the ‘Heart Space.’ Both ‘space’ and ‘heart’ are common self symbols. The self is like space because it contains everything in it and at the same time it pervades everything. The word ‘heart’ should be taken as ‘essence’ as in the phrase, ‘the heart of the matter. The self is the essence of everything. This myth presents many interesting ideas. In most Pauranic stories the Gods do not manifest their real forms when they first appear on earth but are disguised as normal human beings or animals. By this we are meant to understand that within every living creature the Divine dwells. So we see Shiva, the self, masquerading as a human being, a Brahmin priest. He is accompanied by Vishnu as Mohini. Mohini is a name that comes from the word ‘moha’ which means delusion. So we can interpret this to mean that when he descends from this Himalayan peak (the self) he forgets who he is. The statement that ordinary persons are deluded by the appearance of these two celestials can be taken to mean that in the state of spiritual ignorance we only see the surface person. That the reality dwells beneath the surface is indicated by the statement that ‘the sages were unimpressed because they knew who they (Shiva and Vishnu) really are.’

The purpose of life on earth according the Vedas is to know who we really are. This knowledge results in our liberation from all the false concepts about who we are that we have developed over the course of our lives. The way we test our self knowledge is by putting it up against the wisdom of scripture, symbolized here by the sages and their

¹⁵ Trees are common self symbols. To climb a tree symbolically means to inquire into or investigate the self. When the self has been understood one ‘sucks the nectar’ from its flowers. The nectar is the bliss of knowing who one is.

sacrificial fire.     Self knowledge is often referred to as the fire of

knowledge¹⁶ and is given as a jnana yagna (knowledge sacrifice) by

those who know it.

The first erroneous self-concept that a human being needs to be overcome is ‘I am the body,’ symbolized by the fierce tiger. The body is our animal nature, full of passion and fear. Shiva destroys this idea and wears the skin as an ornament. The ‘skin’ symbol is apt because it carries the notion of something non-essential. The meaning is that he has peeled away all the romantic notions about the body and seen it for

what it is, a superficial dead outer covering, a ‘sheath’¹⁷ to use the

technical Vedantic term. The idea that the body is ‘dead’ means that it is composed of matter, food to be specific, and only seems to be sentient because of its association with the eternal living consciousness within it.

The second realization he needs to gain before he can perform the victory dance of self realization is that the subtle and causal bodies are equally not self. The Subtle Body is our emotional and thinking faculties and the Causal Body our unconscious mind, symbolized by a gargantuan snake. The snake lives in dark hidden recesses below the surface of the earth like the unconscious mind which is the source of Subtle Body phenomena. Shiva does not kill this snake but subdues it, and wears it as an ornament. This means that the mind must not be destroyed to realize the self, but that it needs to be tamed through understanding.

The final stage of the process of self realization is the domination of ego by the self. The ego is considered a dwarf because it is a stunted, obdurate idea of self, one that refuses to grow. It should be noted that the ego has not been slain, merely subdued. However it is not dominating the self as it does in unenlightened people. Instead it is firmly under the foot of the self.

Finally, the defeat of Shakti in the dance contest is an important symbol. It means that the self is awareness, not energy. Many people on the spiritual path worship shakti (spiritual energy) without consciousness of Shiva, pure awareness. So the dance contest is the Purana’s way of way of saying that awareness is a higher principle than energy. Shiva depends on nothing. He is self created and self supporting. But shakti, energy and matter, is completely dependent on awareness. To worship shakti is foolish because she is always changing. Once she has lifted you up she lets you down.

Churning the Milky Ocean

¹⁶ ‘jnan (knowledge) and agni (fire)’

¹⁷ Sarira in Sanskrit

A long time ago the gods learned of a chalice of nectar, symbol of the self, sitting on the bottom of a deep ocean, the mind. The one who possesses this chalice attains immortality. The Gods tried to find the chalice but were unsuccessful.

Dejected, they went to the Vishnu, the omniscient all-pervading Supreme Being and told him of their desire. Moved by compassion Vishnu agreed to help.

“Churn the ocean until the chalice comes to the surface,” he said. “Churn the ocean? It cannot be done,” they said.

“Sorry,” said the Lord, “it’s the only way. Think about it. Maybe you will come up with something.”

In those days mountains had wings and flew around doing what mountains do when they have time on their hands. Indra, king of the Gods, saw a holy mountain flying around and had an idea.

Hey,” he called, “Mount Mandara, please come down here. We want to talk with you.”

The mountain, always eager to chat with the king of the Gods, flew over and landed nearby.

After explaining the situation, Indra said, “So you see, you would make a perfect churn. You could sit down in the middle of the ocean and enough of you would stick out so we could wrap a rope around your neck and pull. What do you say?” he said, pleased with his idea.

“Why not?” said the mountain affably. “As long as it does not take too long. I have things to do next week.”

“No time at all,” said Indra who had no idea what time was because he lived in a timeless world. “We’ll have you out of here as soon as we get the treasure. Not to worry.”

The day was hot and Mandara had been flying around all morning so the idea of cooling off in the ocean of milk seemed attractive. He flew out to the center and settled in.

“So far so good,” said Indra. “Now we need a rope.”

“There’s no rope in heaven that long,” said the Gods in unison. “Not a chance. Forget it.”

“I hate to admit it but I think you’re right,” said Indra sitting down in despair.

Just then Vasuki, the cosmic serpent, slithered by and Indra was struck with another idea.

“Hey Vasuki,” said Indra motioning him over. “I want to talk with you.”

“Ok,” said Vasuki, “What’s up?”

Once Indra had explained the situation Vasuki agreed, swam out and wrapped himself around the top of the protruding mountain, his head

resting on one shore and his tail on the other. One group of gods took the head, another the tail. They pulled and pulled but nothing happened.

Dejected, they approached Vishnu who suggested enlisting the help of the demons who were very strong, an idea they found distasteful but eventually accepted.

Indra instructed the demons to pull on the tail. They felt insulted and refused. “You pull it,” they said. “We want the head.”

The gods did not want the tail either and a furious altercation broke out.

To resolve it Vishnu suggested flipping a coin.   The Gods got the

head so the demons unhappily agreed to pull on the tail.

Their enthusiastic churning brought forth many interesting and valuable treasures from the depths. Each time one would appear they would retrieve it and ask Vishnu if it were the immortal nectar.

“Keep churning,” Vishnu said, “You’ll know it when you see it.

They continued to churn and after some time noticed a foul black liquid start to bubble up.

“You’re getting closer,” said Vishnu.

Soon, however, they realized that the black liquid was a virulent poison that spread itself over the land killing every living thing. The fumes were so toxic the gods and demons who are normally immune to such things began to feel faint and lessened their efforts.

As it so happened at this moment that Shiva and Parvati were flying through the air on the cosmic bull, Nandi. Parvati noticed that something was wrong and called Shiva’s attention to the situation. He immediately landed on the shore, strode out into the middle of the ocean, scooped up the poison in his hands and drank it. When Parvati realized that he would die trying to save the Gods and Demons she choked him and the poison came to rest in his neck. Henceforth Shiva was known as Neelakanta, the ‘blue necked’ god.

Seeing that there was no longer a threat, the Gods and Demons renewed their efforts and eventually an emerald green chalice glowing with an ethereal light and filled with the immortal nectar arose from the depths to the cheers of the participants. It was so luminous and beautiful that everyone understood immediately what it was.

An argument ensued about the division of the spoils and when it became particularly heated the demons grabbed the chalice and ran off with the gods in hot pursuit. Eventually, somewhere over India they caught up, grabbed the chalice, and in the ensuing struggle four drops of nectar fell to earth, landing on holy rivers at Haridwaar, Nasik, Allahabad, and Ujain.

These places are therefore considered to be extremely sacred and, in addition to serving as pilgrimage centers, host the Kumba Mela, a celebration of immense importance that attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every three years. Astrologers have calculated to the minute the moment when each drop landed at each spot and it is believed that to bathe in the river at that time washes away all sins. Although carefully organized, occasionally at the most auspicious moment the crowds stampede into the river many die. Death in these circumstances is considered fortunate, however, because it is thought to release the soul from bondage to the eternal wheel of birth and death.

What it Means

Hidden in this entertaining myth are some very important spiritual truths. The ‘nectar’ is the self. Nectar means essence. Immortality is the nature of the self. To know that one is the self is to know that one is immortal. Immortality is liberation from the ravages of time, the most sought after goal. Who seeks it? Gods and Demons. Gods represent the spiritual forces in the mind. These forces always seek to know their origin. Demons represent the negative materialistic forces in the mind. These powerful forces cause suffering and therefore it is in the interest of the mind to remove them. It is only by ‘drinking the nectar of self knowledge’ that the mind is purified of its negative tendencies.

Where is the nectar located? At the bottom of the ‘milky ocean.’ The ‘milky ocean’ stands for a pure mind. Milk is a symbol of purity. That the nectar is at the bottom means that the self, luminous awareness, is the foundation, the substrate of the mind. To bring this great treasure up to the surface is the task that awaits anyone seeking self knowledge. ‘The surface’ symbolizes the conscious mind. The knowledge “I am limitless awareness” needs to be the foundation of one’s conscious identity. How is this to be accomplished? By churning the mind. Churning is a common spiritual symbol in Vedic literature. The purpose of churning is to bring forth the butter (self) hidden in the milk (the mind). Inquiry involves stirring up one’s beliefs and opinions with the mantra, “Who am I?” This allows the seeker to separate false self notions from the truth of his or her nature. When the mind consistently engages in self inquiry it becomes powerful and eventually free. The ‘valuable treasures from the depths’ that appeared before the poison represent the psychic powers that accrue to anyone doing intense spiritual work. These are meant to be rejected.

Just before the self is to be realized the mind vomits forth all its deepest darkest poisons. It is attacked by intense doubt. Fears and temptations arise in it. How should these dark forces be dealt with? They should be neutralized by the practice of non-attachment and kept away from the head and the heart so they do not poison one’s thinking or one’s devotion to the truth.    The neck is a neutral zone between the head and the heart.

Devotional Symbolism

The idea that bhakti, devotion, is a unique path is relatively modern invention. It is not mentioned in the Vedas. This is because what has come to be thought of as Bhakti Yoga, the devotional path, is nothing more than the practice of rituals. Rituals are karma. Therefore devotees are karmis, doers of action. The Vedas proscribe only two lifestyles: the sannyassi and the householder. Sannyassis are people who, owing to the understanding that there is no doer, are not enjoined to practice ritual. Householders take themselves to be doers and therefore they practice karma. They practice karma because they desire things and rituals have proven to be a legitimate path to the attainment of various sought after ends. Both are going for moksha and both are motivated by love of truth. Therefore devotion cannot be a separate path. Devotion is simply the motivation to pursue whatever one pursues. It is common to all human beings.

It so happens that people seeking liberation will only be successful if the mind is prepared. To prepare the mind the ancient texts recommend that devotion for God be cultivated. The preparation consists in changing the way the mind views its world. It needs to see itself and the body as objects given by God for the express purpose of worship rather than as vehicles for satisfying worldly desires. It must be trained to take everything in life, not just religious symbols, as God. For example, the devotee is to see food as God, the eater as God, and the body as God’s temple. One’s spouse and children are to be regarded as God’s own, every spoken word taken to be the name of the Lord and all actions, no matter how apparently mundane, as service to God. Bending, lying, or kneeling are to be considered prostration to God, walking as circumambulation of the Deity, all lights as symbols of the self, sleep as union with God, and rest as meditation. Every person the devotee contacts must be offered loving service, as if he or she were the Divinity itself. With the intention of keeping God’s name continually in the mind, in this manner mundane rituals from washing dishes to sweeping the floor are converted to sacred rites.

To a fervent devotee religious icons (stone, wood, paper, clay, and metal statuary) are not viewed merely as elevating or provocative symbols but are to be bathed, fed, entertained, spoken to slept, and worshipped as living Divinity. On special holy days in India at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa State, God is removed from the temple on an astrologically auspicious day, placed on top of a multi-story intricately-carved brightly-painted wooden car, and pulled through the streets by thousands of ecstatic devotees on the way to the ocean for an afternoon at the beach. Although the custom has been outlawed in recent years, in the old days it was not uncommon for worshippers in the throes of ecstasy to hurl themselves beneath the great wooden wheels, crushed to death at the feet of the Lord which was meant to confer liberation.

To the materialist mind, projecting life into inanimate objects seems the height of irrationality but the practice is good psychology from a devotional perspective. Just as an actress ‘becomes’ the person she is portraying by totally identifying with every aspect of the character’s life, the devotee discovers identity with the inner self through intense identification with the symbol. The greater the identification with one’s chosen symbol the greater is the love for what it symbolizes. Contemplating on the life of an avatar or saint intensifies devotion, for example. The more intense the devotion the more likely it is to cause an epiphany, a vision of the self. Having witnessed the beauty of the self it is impossible not to fall in love and become passionately attached. Because worldly beauties pale, outer attachments, personal views, automatically fall away.

The tension between the mind’s inward moving spiritual forces and its outward turned material forces make devotional practice difficult. At the onset material energies dominate and redirecting attention to God is difficult. The worship of every thing as the Beloved, however, counteracts the dark forces.

Relationship Symbols

Nobody lives in a cave these days. No matter how ‘spiritual’ we are we are caught up in a web of relationships all our lives. Even if we are not immediately involved with people in a meaningful way the relationships that set us on our paths still exist in our minds and color the way we think of ourselves and respond to life. These psychic remnants need not be a source of psychological dysfunction and send us off to the therapist’s couch; they can be transformed into devotional tools that prepare the mind for self realization by converting worldly emotions into devotion for the self.  Any psychological tendency and the relationships it spawns, no matter how negative, can awaken love of God. For example, if a parental relationship functioned successfully, we will have developed love and respect for elders, an attitude or ‘bhava’ that can quickly be converted into love and respect for God.

The Slave

Slavery is a common spiritual symbol. It is based on the idea that we are all slaves to our conditioning. Who isn’t chained to physical passions, indentured to selfish feelings, painfully shackled to unforgiving thoughts? The more we strive for freedom, rail and rebel against the injustices of society and aggressively court empowerment, the more we admit our bondage to the unreal.

To convert the feeling of powerlessness into a positive devotional force is the purpose of ‘dasya bhava,’ a devotional psychology ultimately leading to self love and freedom. A service-oriented psychology, the devotee worships God and Its manifestations, people particularly, with a whole heart, putting his or her life completely in God’s hands, seeing his or herself as God’s property, faithfully and diligently executing all Divine instructions with mindless efficiency. Such devotees support and maintain religious, charitable, and spiritual institutions, faithfully serve enlightened souls, spiritual teachers, and God-intoxicated devotees.

The Slave is considered a sophisticated love game because it develops loyalty and respect, natural feelings in the presence of The Master/Mistress. Secondly, to distinguish God’s voice from the many self-serving ego voices requires a quiet mind and keen discrimination. Diligently practiced, this bhava quickly reduces ego inflations to rubble.

The Wife

If The Slave is not your cup of tea try The Wife, another high devotional stance. The tie between the husband and wife is the strongest and sweetest in the world, containing all love expressions, particularly sexual intimacy, which is taken to symbolize the union of the devotee and God, the ecstatic wedding of the individual and supreme Selves. In this mood of complete identification and attachment the devotee, regardless of sex, sees God as the husband or wife, to honor and obey in every life situation, even beyond the grave. Just as devoted spouses will gladly suffer for each other, the devotee will suffer any misery on behalf of his or her beloved Husband or Wife.

A quotation found on the back of an eighteenth century painting reproduced in a book entitled, Krishna, the Divine Lover, illustrates the mood as practiced by a sect of devotees known as the Shakti Bhavas, worshippers of the Divine Mother, Radha, consort of Krishna.

“This sect is in favor with those with an effeminate turn of mind. They declare themselves to be the female companions of Radha, with the idea of paying her homage and establishing identity, even taking on the manner of speech, gait, gestures and dress of women. At monthly intervals, in the manner of menstruating women, they put on red-colored clothes as if affected by menstruation and pass three days in this state. After menstruation is over, they take a ceremonial bath. In the manner of married women anxious to be physically united with their husbands as enjoined in the scriptures, they take to themselves on the forth night a painting of Sri Krishna, and stretch themselves, raising both legs, utter “ahs” and “oohs,” adopt coy women-like manners, and cry aloud, “Ah Krishna, I die! Oh Krishna, I die!” Through practices like these they believe they earn great merit and please the Lord by engaging themselves the whole night.”

The Friend

Friendship is a more common devotional style. In it equal love flows between God and the devotee. God is seen as a tried and true confidante, a close relative or family member, one with whom innermost secrets can be shared. “Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what the lord doeth, but I call you friends, for all things I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.”

Practitioners of this bhava find their greatest happiness in the happiness of God in others and dedicate themselves to the spiritual welfare of their friends. As do close friends, the devotee acutely suffers moments of separation, continually craving God’s company, either in the form of a deep experience, or through communication and conversation with other devotees. The tender, joyful, and playful relationship of nine and ten year old children serves to model this charming mood which sees God as a dear playmate sporting among His or Her creations.

The Child

A popular bhava because we so easily identify with childlike parts of the psyche, this method is based on the universal need of children to love their parents. The devotee is enjoined to love God with the unsuspecting faith of the child, acknowledging and accepting his or her state of total helplessness, ignorance, dependence, and attachment. Practically the devotee treats all fatherly and motherly figures as God, including his or her own parents. Parents, our physical source, make nice symbols of God, our spiritual source. The realization that we are part and parcel of His or Her being instills confidence in our own divinity.

Similar to The Slave, this love game is considered an imperfect vehicle for God realization because it does not, except indirectly, cultivate knowledge of God, leaving the devotee vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation from both inner and outer sources. Ultimately, of course, love begets knowledge because the intellect develops natural curiosity for what the heart loves, but in the short run this devotional posture is at best a preliminary step in the soul’s long march home. Because this style of worship produces such deep attachment, unless the devotee cultivates understanding of the formless aspect of God through scriptural study and meditation, he or she is in danger of forgetting God’s greatness and glory, and merely using God, like a child its parents, to satisfy basic needs.

Mom and Pop

The parent symbol is said to be superior to the child because parental love is tempered with understanding, a sense of duty and responsibility. The precious and profound love of God produced by this mood is balanced and enhanced by an equally deep attempt to probe the mysteries of the Divine through scriptural study, meditation, and reflection.

It taps the universal need to parent and can be successfully practiced by anyone who has felt the need to protect and nurture a small helpless creature. Children, because of their purity, innocence, and guileless bliss, make excellent symbols of God. When the devotee develops the parental feeling for his or her inner self, he or she shines with maternal or paternal splendor. When maternal feelings for God achieve rapturous intensity, this mood is even known to produce mammary secretions in women!

Because it forces the devotee to identify with the “inner parent,” this mood helps heal the negative views of parents that accompany the reluctance to leave their ‘inner child’ and attain spiritual maturity. The bhava also teaches the devotee to detach from ideas of power, fear, and punishment associated with God. Calling into questions ideas of reverence and obedience, the bhava also roots out atavistic concepts of low self esteem and unworthiness associated with God’s glory, majesty, and grandeur – projections of a primitive religious consciousness. Unlike the child, the mother and father are not moved to awe in the presence of the child. Because they cannot ask favors of a child the bhava negates the tendency to ask favors of the Lord. And, like parents their children, the devotee is enjoined to make any sacrifice for the sake of God.

The Passionate Lover

A selfless lover eager to gratify his or her beloved is the intriguing model for this bhava which takes the bliss of physical orgasm as a symbol of the powerful experience of ecstatic meditation on the self. It is often considered the most advanced love game because passionate spiritual love is the hardest to develop owing to the difficulty of consistently experiencing the self. Because of excessive attachment brought on by the experience of extreme joy in the presence of God, it is equally difficult to break.

A completely spiritual love, the devotee sees God, the innermost self, as divinely beautiful and lovely, an Adonis or Aphrodite, to be worshipped with an affection verging on the erotic. In this style of love, all conventions, reservations, hesitations, and personal views are cast aside and an exclusive, potentially jealous, love cultivated. A gargantuan appetite, craving for the embrace of God, is characteristic of this love game. Just as lovers locked in the throes of orgasm do not know what is inside or outside or which body is which, the devotee in union with the self knows neither internal nor external, and is unable to distinguish his or her body from God’s (all matter). In the culmination of this bhava all sense of duality disappears, leaving only the sweetest bliss.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

No experience lasts forever. The ecstatic mind eventually returns to its normal state. In this bhava the normal state is treated as an opportunity to develop love in absence, just as a lover’s desire for the beloved is increased by separation.

The emotional symptoms of the absence bhava are sleeplessness, helplessness, fickleness, depression, and anxiety. When they descend from the ecstatic heights of devotion, devotees practicing this bhava often see God as a fickle, inconsiderate, unfaithful lover prone to selfish disappearances and are not above exhibiting signs of haughty superiority and disdain, fervent yearning, regret because of the Beloved’s uncaring attitude, and a sense of folly for having become involved with God in the first place. Occasionally the separation causes such anguish the devotee accuses the Lord of cruel injustice: the perverse dispensation of pleasure to others while the devotee, who has not forgotten the Beloved for a minute, continues to suffer.

The Forbidden Lover

Operating under the assumption that the more love is obstructed, the more it intensifies, this bhava, a variation of the Passionate Lover, converts feelings of secrecy and shame associated with love into a positive devotional psychology.

Love of God often awakens in the most unlikely and inconvenient circumstances.  When  a  declaration  of  love  would  invite  ridicule, condemnation, and persecution, taking God as a forbidden lover is helpful. Devoid of outer signs, the Forbidden Lover is a “stealth” psychology, through which the love of God grows by inner yearning, silent repetition of the Holy Name, and meditation. Devotees whose possessive, insecure, and jealous spouses can’t tolerate the idea of inner freedom and divine love can benefit greatly from this bhava.

The Deities

Ganesh

Some effort is required to read the Pauranic stories of the Gods but access to the self through the popular deities is effortless because their images are ubiquitous. I think it would be fair to say that Ganesh, the elephant God, is the most popular deity in the Hindu pantheon and the easiest to decode. If you wish take him as a charming somewhat bizarre cartoon, ask him to remove the obstacles to the satisfaction of your desires and leave it at that. Or if you want to go deeper use his divine form to enter the shining world of the self.

Ganesh has a fat human body and the head of an elephant. How he got the elephant head and what it means is revealed in the following story. Shiva had been meditating on the top of Mount Kailas for fifty thousand years when suddenly he had the desire to make love with his wife. He had been away for so long that he decided to knock before entering his house. A chubby young boy answered the door. He did not know that the boy was his son because he had left to meditate shortly after the boy was conceived. The boy in turn had never seen his father so he took the man at the door to be a stranger.

‘What do you want?” he asked Shiva.

“Step aside,” Shiva said, “I want to see Parvati.”

“You’ll have to wait,” said Ganesh, “I’ll ask her if she is willing to receive visitors.”

“I said get out of my way,” Shiva replied with considerable irritation. “I said you’ll have to wait,” replied Ganesh protectively.  “I don’t

know who you think you are but you certainly are lacking in manners.”

At this Shiva who was known to have a short temper brandished his Trishool and shouted, “Get out of my way you fat little dwarf or I’ll cut off your head.”

“Over my dead body,” said Ganesh digging in his heels.

Shiva swung his trishool and cut off his son’s head just as Parvati, hearing the shouting, arrived at the door.

“What have you done, you beast!” she screamed looking at the dead body of her son. You better fix this right away or you will never the see the inside of my bedroom again.”

Realizing that his chances of getting laid were fast approaching zero Shiva said, “You do one thing. Run out and bring the first creature you see that has a head.”

When she got to the street she saw an elephant coming her way. She led the elephant to Shiva who cut off its head and stuck it on Ganesh’s body. He immediately revived, Parvati was thrilled to have her son back and Shiva was invited in.

What it Means

A Freudian psychologist might have a field day with the Oedipal implications of this myth but it was never intended as a statement about the condition of the human psyche. The purpose of the Ganesh symbol is to reveal the nature of the self beyond the mind.

Ganesh as a boy represents any human being who does not know who he is. In fact he is the son of Shiva, which is to say, the son of God. He does not know this, however, because his understanding is limited. He is just a ‘boy’ spiritually speaking. Elephants are symbols of intelligence and memory. When Ganesh confronts Shiva, his own innermost self, he is relieved of his limited understanding. The elephant head represents the Vedas, the knowledge of the self. The self is the source of our intelligence. The message of the Vedas are what needs to be remembered if we are to gain self knowledge. What is self knowledge? That I am limitless awareness, without name and form.

If you look into the meaning of his name you will discover that he is the self. Gana means planet and isha means the ruler. He is the ruler of the planets. The thoughts in our minds revolve around awareness just like the planets revolve around the sun. This means that the mind is useful only because it structured by an eternally consistent power. The millions of subjective events that take place in our consciousness depend on awareness just as the planets need the sun’s gravitational field to remain in orbit. Without it they would spin out of control and the solar system would no longer be a ‘system.’ Life would be an impossible chaos because purposeful work would be impossible. So awareness ‘rules’ the mind. It illumines the mind like the sun illumines the planets. If awareness is withdrawn from the mind, as it is in deep sleep, the mind dies.

Ganesh has only one tusk. This means that the self is non-dual. Two symbolizes duality and one non-duality. Shiva was entreated by the Gods to give out the Vedas for the sake of the world. He agreed but with one stipulation; that he would not repeat even one word. Ganesh agreed to record the Vedas and duly took up his pen. Shiva began but in the middle of the discourse Ganesh’s pen ran out of ink. Fearing that he would miss something while filling his pen he broke off his tusk and continued to write without missing a word. This means that the words of the Vedas destroy one’s dualistic views. In other words Ganesh attained enlightenment hearing the teachings of the Vedas.

Every aspect of his wonderful form speaks of non-duality. His huge round belly, for instance. Non-duality, you say? What is the connection? Answer: the self is purna, fullness. This means that nothing can be added to you or subtracted from you. As the self you are always satisfied.

Ganesh rides on a rat or has a small mouse at his feet. Rodents are symbols of desire. They have so much desire they are continually active. Desire is synonymous with the ego. Because it feels limited, inadequate and incomplete the ego desires to complete itself by obtaining things in this world. Desires control people who do not know who they are but the enlightened have transcended desire; they are non- doers. You can only attain the status of a non-doer if you realize that you are whole and complete by nature. If you know this you do not feel the need to do anything to gain anything.

Ganesh has four arms. This means that the self has four ‘limbs.’ They are (1) manas, the emotional/feeling function, (2) buddhi, the intellect or thinking function, (3) ahamkara, the ego or ‘I’ sense and (4) chittta, memory.

In his upper right hand he is holding an open lotus. The lotus is a symbol of enlightenment. It is closed at night (spiritual ignorance) and opens in the light (self knowledge).

In his upper left hand he carries an axe representing discrimination. Discrimination is the power to distinguish what is real from what isn’t. The self alone is real, meaning enduring. It’s forms are unreal. Enlightenment is nothing but discrimination.

His lower right hand is in abaya mudra and is holding a mala. Abaya mudra is the gesture of fearlessness. The self is fearless and grants protection from fear. The mala represents spiritual practice. The purpose of a mala is to remove mal. Mal is subjective impurties. Subjective impurities fall into two categories: rajas and tamas. Rajas is passion and desire. It produces much emotional and mental agitation and is inimical to self realization. Tamas is stupidity, sloth, and inertia. It causes the mind to cloud. The self cannot be seen in a sleepy mind. Discrimination does not function when the mind is dull or passionate.

In the lower left hand Ganesh is holding a big bowl of sweets. This means that the self is bliss, the sweetest thing. There is nothing dearer or more sweet than one’s self.

Ganesh sports a beautiful golden crown, symbolizing dominion, power, and overlordship. The self has dominion over everything in so far as it is the source of everything. It is omnipotent and as such rules the world.

Kali

The Pauranic Deities are a divine smorgasboard of meaning. There are many self symbols because people’s tastes are diverse. Since all of these deities reference the same object just as all food serves the same purpose you can access the self through innumerable pathways.

Kali is one of the most provocative symbols of the self. Yes, she is intelligent and compassionate but she is also aggressive and prone to combat. Feminists and lesbians love her for obvious reasons. But, like all Hindu deities, she is not a statement about the mind. There are many images and stories of Kali but the one I have chosen to discuss reveals a particularly important truth about the quest for enlightenment.

Kali is the self in the form of Time. Time is the great destroyer. She is the feminine counterpart of Shiva. Yes, the self is responsible for the decay and destruction that is one aspect of its creation but the destruction we see depicted here…murder…is of a different order. To divine the meaning of this symbol we need to understand the stages of enlightenment.

We come into this life experiencing our limitlessness and oneness with everything but, because the intellect has yet to develop, we do not understand what we are experiencing. When the intellect does develop it is trained to think of the self as limited, incomplete and inadequate and is encouraged to solve the problem of inadequacy by picking up experience in life. At a certain point, the individual comes to realize that no matter how much experience he or she can garner, the experienced objects and activities do not produce lasting happiness. This is usually an unpleasant realization, often resulting in a profound disillusionment. It is frequently referred to as the ‘dark night of the soul’ in religious literature or ‘hitting bottom’ in popular culture.

Most react to this existential crisis by sinking into distracting habits, mind numbing substances and/or frivolous entertainments, but for unknown reasons a few begin to enjoy a variety of peculiar and invariably confusing religious or spiritual experiences that lead them to the idea of God or some sort of ‘inner light’ or ‘higher state.’ And at some point during this period the person becomes convinced that he or she can find happiness ‘within.’

The second stage is the conscious search for the self because the self, it is rightly believed, is the only source of lasting satisfaction. During this stage the mind ‘enters the stream’ to use a Buddhist metaphor; it finds a spiritual path. Spiritual culture is the road to liberation. However, it can also become the final obstacle because the seeker can develop and cling to a developed identity as a seeker.  Liberation is the realization that the self is limitless and that the ‘I’ is the self. In this image the dead Shiva represents the spiritual path and the destruction of the seeking identity. Kali, the self, stands proudly over its dead body. This same truth is encapsulated in the Zen saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the path, slay him.”

How has this final realization been accomplished? With the sword of discrimination. The ‘sword of discrimination’ is an extremely common Vedantic symbol because it represents the Upanishad’s fundamental view of enlightenment…discrimination. What is this discrimination? It is the ability to separate what is real from what isn’t. The self alone is real. What changes is unreal. Yes, in a non-dual reality everything is real but during the seeking phase many ephemeral manifestations of the self still seem real and it is the duty of the seeker to reject them and cling to the self alone. Realization, enlightenment, happens when the sword of discrimination is used to lop off the head of the one who is wielding the sword. In other words when one calls off the search and embraces his or her limitless identity.

How has this discrimination been accomplished? Kali is almost always depicted as wearing a necklace of skulls or in this case bloody severed heads. Skulls represent death. Death is not a physical statement in spiritual science. It is a symbol change…time. So the necklace of skulls represents the self as immortal…beyond change. In this image she wears a necklace of bloody severed heads. The ‘head’ in spiritual iconography invariably represents thought. What thoughts have been cut off? All thoughts of limitation. This means that she is left with only one thought, ‘I am limitless awareness’ because you cannot kill awareness and the knowledge of oneself as awareness is not separate from awareness itself.

The skirt of severed hands is another interesting symbol. Hands represent doing. Most of our physical activities require hands. To do, you need a doer. Most people identify themselves with their accomplishments or roles in life. This identity needs to be removed if one is to attain full spiritual maturity. It is accomplished when you realize that you are the self. The self is not a doer because it is non-dual. There is no activity in awareness, the self. How can there be activity if there is nothing other than it? This is why enlightenment equals peace…all one’s striving to be more, better or different cease.

Kali’s halo is a cliché symbol of illumination. The final symbol, her uncut hair, represents the self as the natural state. Cut hair is unnatural. Only humans do it. In spite of considerable research I have been unable to come up with a reasonable explanation for Kali’s extended tongue. I’m leaning toward the following explanation but it is a stretch: the tongue is hidden within the mouth.  Enlightenment means that everything is known and nothing is concealed.     Therefore one is not afraid to show everything that is ‘inside.’

Vishnu

Vishnu is a benign, intelligent and compassionate deity. He is the self in the form of the preserver and represents the principle of light in the universe. The word ‘vishnu’ means ‘that which pervades everything’ and refers to the self. In this image, which is perhaps my favorite spiritual symbol, Vishnu is reclining on the coils of the seven headed cosmic serpent, Adi Sesha in an infinite ocean. From his navel a lotus is growing and in the center of the lotus sits Brahma, the creator of the universe. He is attended by celestials, Gods and sages. His wife Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth, is at his feet. In one hand he holds the lotus of enlightenment and a noose in the other. The sun and the moon look on. The graphic was scanned from an old poster and some of it was damaged beyond repair so Laxmi, the noose, the moon and part of the sun are missing.

Vishnu is reclining. Reclining, rest, and sleep are common and appropriate self symbols. They are appropriate because the self is a non-doer. It is always at rest. It is the substrate for the universe and the source of its creative energies. It is ‘asleep’ i.e. unconcerned by the problems of the world. The self rests on itself in the form of the seven headed infinite cosmic serpent. This simply means that the self is limitless. The seven heads symbolize the seven cosmic levels the Vedas speak of: three heaven realms, three hell realms and earth. The most subtle and important symbol is the lotus coming from his navel with the four-headed Creator sitting in it. It is important because it says that the self is more than just the creator of the universe.  It is the consciousness because of which creation is possible. It is uncreated, unborn, and unmade. The creator, Brahma, is of a lower order because it is created out of consciousness. And because the creation is an effect of which the creator is the cause it is also consciousness. This is so because any effect is just a transformation of a pre-existing cause. The word brahma means limitless and therefore the creation is limitless. It is limitless because the substrate, the self, is limitless. Brahma’s four heads represent the four cardinal directions, the four elements and the four limbs of the Subtle Body. This accounts for both matter and spirit. These two principles make creation possible. Spirit can’t create without a substance. And a substance cannot shape itself because it is inert and insentient. The creation can only happen in duality. In consciousness itself creation is impossible because it is non-dual. The sun and the moon also represent the dualistic principles that make up the cosmos. The sun represents awareness and the moon reflected awareness, i.e. the energy/matter that make up the creation.

The lotus symbolizes enlightenment. Enlightenment is the knowledge “I am that which pervades everything, limitless awareness.” The self is compassion; it sees everyone and everything as itself. Therefore it is the ‘wielder of the noose.’ The noose symbolizes liberation. Vishnu reaches down into the ocean of samsara and grants liberation to souls drowning there. The ‘ocean of samsara’ is the state of mind of samsaris. Samsaris are worldly people, caught up in their conditioning. Samsara means whirlpool or ‘circling.’ Conditioning happens because people do not know they are free, i.e. the self. They get caught up in it and go round and round on the ‘wheel of samsara.’

The Gods and sages looking on mean that both the unseen world of spiritual forces (the gods) and the world of humans (the sages) depend on the self for their existence. Finally Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth, worships at his feet. It means that our only source of real wealth is devotion to the self. On Vishnu’s forehead is the caste mark of Vaishnavas. It is a symbol of a Vedic sacrifical rite, a yagna. The white portion represents the kund, the bricks that contain the sacrificial fire. They symbolize matter. And the red mark in the center represents the sacrificial fire, the ‘fire of consciousness.” The self is seen as a fire because it gives both heat (love) love and light (wisdom).

The Story of Vishu’s Avatara as a Dwarf

A very long time ago a powerful demon, Mahabali, gained control of the earth, set himself up as its ruler and instituted a reign of materialism. He hated religion and promulgated laws banning religious rituals.  The gods live from the offerings from sacrificial fires and because of the ban were beginning to starve. The offerings of the few brave souls who worshiped in secret were not enough to sustain them so they went to Vishnu who was reclining on Sesha in the infinite milky ocean and asked him to come down on earth and destroy the demon. Vishnu, an ocean of compassion, agreed and took the form of a dwarf sannyassi, a renunciate.

It so happened that once Bali had consolidated his grip on power he understood the importance of keeping the public happy and decided to distribute gifts to various cronies and supporters. As a public relations gimmick he promised to gift the general public as well. On the day of the giveaway the Gods and the dwarf Vishnu showed up and got in line. When it was their turn Indra, the king of the Gods stepped up and said, “You are indeed a great and generous ruler, O Bali.”

Bali was used to flattery and not impressed by it. “Get to the point,” he said, ‘What do want?”

“As you know, Sir, we are mere Gods and have no physical bodies so we don’t want anything for ourselves but we do have a small request on behalf of this small sannyassi. We think it would be very good public relations with the religious community if you were to gift him with a small plot of land. He’s very tiny and doesn’t need much, just a little parcel on which to build his hut. If I am correct you own the whole world and could easily afford such a modest request.”

The idea appealed to Bali but his chief minister was suspicious. “You know, Bali,” he said, I don’t trust the Gods. They are always up to something. Besides look at that dwarf. There is something positively supernatural about him. He glows like a saint.” .

“You’re right,” Bali replied, “but it’s probably due to his tapas (spiritual practice) and nothing else. What harm can it do? And as the Gods point out it is good public relations. I’ll see to it that he only gets a tiny plot.”

“OK,” Bali said to Indra, “He can have as much land as he can cover with three steps.”

“I did not misspeak when I said you were generous,” Indra said, barely able to conceal his contempt.

It so happens that one of Vishnu’s names is ‘long strider’ owing to the fact that he pervades the whole creation. There is no place where he isn’t so he already is where he would be if he were to attempt to go there.

“Get on with it Swami.” Bali said to Vishnu. “I haven’t got all day.” “Thank you, so much,” Vishnu said. “You are indeed a great man.”

With that he took his first step and claimed the whole material world. Bali’s jaw dropped in amazement and the crowd went wild because they knew that Vishnu would now rule the land fairly. With his second step Vishnu claimed subtle unseen spiritual worlds. The Gods were overjoyed because it spelled the end of Bali’s influence in Heaven too.

“Wait a minute,” said Bali who had realized the glory of the Lord by Vishnu’s awesome display of legerdemain. “I don’t know what is left to claim but please make your third step land on top of my head.’ Accordingly Vishnu put his foot on Bali’s head and he attained enlightenment.

Shiva

Shiva is an immensely popular deity in India and there are many images of him meant to reveal different aspects of the self. The image above is called Shiva Nataraj, the Lord of the Cosmic Dance and the myth behind his appearance in Chidambaram is recounted above. He is dancing in a ring of fire which symbolizes the cosmos. Fire is a symbol of the self, pure consciousness and it means that although the cosmos appears to be insentient it is actually dancing consciousness or energy… a view that is supported by elementary particle physics. Shiva is the power that resides in the heart of every atom that makes the cosmos pulsate with life.

In his upper right hand he is holding a small drum, a damaru, meant to symbolize the creation of space. The existence of space makes vibration possible and this vibration creates the worlds. In the upper left hand he is holding a small flame. This represents the destruction of ignorance, the ‘fire of knowledge’ that consumes the fuel of unknowning. The lower right hand with only the palm and fingers visible is abaya mudra, the gesture of fearlessness. The self is fearless and protects the creation from fear; Shiva’s is a benign universe. The lower left arm and hand sloping downward indicates, grace or compassion. For aesthetic reasons I was unable to include the dwarf under his feet but this is an essential part of the story because it represents the relationship between the self and the ego.

Saraswati

Fire is one of the most pervasive symbols of the self. During the Vedic period Agni, the fire god, was the most popular deity. And many thousand years later fire is still an essential element in religious ritual. Fire is an appropriate symbol because it gives both light and heat. Light is an obvious self symbol because it removes darkness just as self knowledge removes spiritual ignorance. Heat is a common symbol of love. The self is the love that glues the whole creation together causing each part to work in harmony with the others. Fire also consumes dry wood just as self knowledge consumes hardened dry egoic habits. In this graphic the fire of wisdom is consuming the stone out of which the Goddess is carved. The Goddess, Saraswati, is sitting in a lotus. The open lotus symbolizes enlightenment, the realization that one is perfect,

i.e. fully developed already. The lotus is fitting symbol for spiritual awakening because it opens in daylight and closes at night. Night is a common symbol of spiritual ignorance. Her four arms represent her as the self, limitless awareness, in the form of the Subtle Body or the human mind. One limb represents the intellect, another the feelings and

emotions, the third the ego or ‘I-sense’ and the forth memory. The left hand resting on her lap symbolizes the receptive negative feminine energy and the right the positive masculine energy. Together they represent duality. The original icon can be found on a temple at Gangaikondacholapuram in Tamil Nadu.

Appropriate Self Symbols

Light/Vision/Seeing

Why do light and vision symbols most accurately represent the slf and self knowledge? Because the self is limitless non-dual awareness. Awareness is the ‘light’ in which what is known is known, the ‘eye of consciousness.’ It is not physical light but it is similar to physical light because it illumines all objects, including physical light, just as physical light illumines the objects in space. Shankara says, “Realize That to be the self which illumines the sun, but is not illumined by the sun.” Fire works too because it produces light. Because of this the sun is a common self symbol. Perception, is ‘seeing.’ Seeing is knowing. Knowing is experiencing. Because the eyes bring knowledge and experience they are appropriate self symbols. Although the moon illumines things it is not an appropriate self symbol because it does not generate its own light from within. It borrows its light from the sun. Therefore it is an appropriate symbol for the mind.

Third Eye

We have two eyes for seeing objects and one, the self, for seeing reality. What is that ‘eye?’ It is knowledge. Knowledge brings ‘light’ to things. Ignorance of physical objects is taken care of by the physical eyes. But what kind of ‘eye’ removes self ignorance. It would necessarily be a ‘third’ eye.

Fish Eye

The prize for the most creative symbol goes to the person who named the famous Shiva temple in Madurai, the Meenakshi Temple. Meenakshi means ‘fish eye.’ I puzzled long and hard how such a wondrous edifice could have been given such a bizarre and apparently profane name. One day I met a South Indian pundit who confirmed my suspicion; because it has no eyelid a fish eye, like the self, never sleeps.

Problem Symbols

Union, Becoming, Merger, Experiencing and State

It is true that owing to the plethora spiritual words one encounters on the path it often seems easier to give up thinking altogether and become an advocate of ‘surrender’ or some equally ill-considered belief. But we cannot escape words. Even in the silence of the presence of the self they operate, coloring and shaping our quests. As we approach the end of our journeys, however, the words we cling to or have rejected become more and more important.

It would be fair to say that even those of us that imagine we have given up concepts actually formulate enlightenment in terms of action words. For example: the ego is meant to “become’ or ‘merge into’ the self; the individual is supposed ‘experience’ the ‘state of non-duality;’ to ‘finish’ our work we are enjoined to ‘experience’ the self; enlightenment should ‘feel’ like endless bliss; enlightenment is the ‘union’ of the individual and the total. Formulating enlightenment in terms of action words and experience reflects our belief in the reality of duality.

However, if reality is actually not a duality then action words become a big problem. If our world is a non-duality as scripture contends, then the appropriate words to describe and conceive it would be nouns. And statements about it would be appropriately framed as simple statements of identity. Let’s examine some words and see how they might either aid or prevent enlightenment.

Union/Becoming

It is the contention of Yoga that enlightenment is a union of the individual with the Divine. What kind of union is it? Supposedly it is an experience in which the subject and the object ‘become’ one. So what is this ‘becoming?’ ‘Becoming’ means that something that was in one form previously subsequently changes into another form. In short, something limited, inadequate and incomplete ‘becomes’ limitless adequate and whole. This is all fine as an idea but it presents a real problem. ‘Becoming’ is experiencing. Experience never stops changing. Therefore there is no such thing as a permanent experience. If enlightenment is an experience and there is no such thing as a permanent experience there is no permanent enlightenment. If there is no such thing as permanent enlightenment why would it be more desirable than any of the many pleasurable experiences that are available to us on a daily basis? Why would we seek it in the first place?

If this is a non-dual reality there cannot be two separate selves. If there are not two separate selves how can they ‘become’ one? Yes, it seems like there are two or more selves but what if the mind has played a trick on us and caused us to take what is one as two or many? If this is so then there is no lower self to ‘become’ a higher self and all attempts to make this happen are ultimately futile.

Someone who has ‘become’ the self through an experience ‘unbecomes’ the self when the experience runs its course. These temporary self realizations are useful in so far as they give the experiencer an idea that there is a self and that it is limitless but if the person believes that enlightenment is the ‘permanent experience of the self’ he or she will simply develop a craving for self experience. Is the craving for an epiphany different from any other craving?

Merger

For a merger to take place two objects are required but if this is a non-dual reality there are not two objects. Therefore trying to merge oneself into something else is pointless. If, however, reality is described in terms of what is, then the search for experience would necessarily become a search for understanding. Understanding means that I don’t have to change myself or my world, I just have to expose myself to a means of knowledge and let it work on me. Knowledge is not something you do. It is something that happens. If this is a non-dual reality but I believe it is a duality then my only problem is lack of understanding. This is why Vedanta formulates the solution to limitation in terms of knowledge.

Waking/Sleeping

Another metaphor for enlightenment is ‘waking up.’ The problem with this idea is that if ‘waking’ is an activity then whatever wakes up eventually goes back to sleep. Formulating enlightenment in terms of ‘awakening’ does more harm than good. Because of this idea the spiritual world is brimming with frustration. The problem is centered on the word ‘you.’ If you are a changeable karmic entity then you will wake and you will sleep. But if you are unchanging awareness then there is no question of sleep or waking. You cannot ‘become’ unchanging awareness because you are unchanging awareness to begin with. This fact can only be ‘experienced’ as knowledge.

State

This is not an action word but it is a problem word nonetheless. The self is often referred to as the forth ‘state’ of consciousness. Or the thought-free state is said to be enlightenment. Is the self a ‘state?’ If a state is subject to change then the self is not a state because the self is unchanging awareness. Although it is not a verb the world ‘state’ becomes a problem when I try to relate it to myself. Am I a ‘state?’ I am not. I am the awareness of any and all states. I, awareness, am a fact. I can only be known. Or not.

Most Exotic Symbol

The prize for the most exotic, artistic and fascinating spiritual symbol goes to the Kundalini Shakti.

As it is conceived there is a ‘serpent power’ a latent energy ‘coiled’ at the base of the spine. This power must be ‘awakened’ so that it can begin its journey back to Shiva, back to the self, the ‘thousand petaled lotus.’ Its journey is long and arduous, fraught with peril. It needs to pass through several ‘chakras’ and have certain experiences on its way to enlightenment. Once it has ‘pierced all the chakras’ it leaves the body and ‘merges’ with consciousness, the self.

This metaphor raises several questions. Why does a latent potential ‘energy’ need to journey through and out of the body to mate with consciousness? How will it be benefited by this ‘union’ if it is consciousness already?

If it awakened on its own, Kundalini Yoga would not have evolved. Kundalini yoga is a lengthy arduous program of physical and mental practices that are meant to awaken the kundalini. These practices must work or they would not have survived for several thousand years. In fact I practiced this yoga in India under the tutelage of a yogi while living in a cave on the Ganges banks. I also experienced ‘union with Shiva’ as a result of them. Unfortunately, a few days later I experienced separation from Shiva.

Kundalini Yoga is obviously an experiential concept of enlightenment tailor made for doers. Its practices are so difficult and complex that only one in a million can master them even if one could find a qualified teacher. And, at the end of the day it does not get rid of the doer, since any practice requires a doer. On the contrary it builds ego if the practice is successful or ruins one’s self confidence if it isn’t. It presumes that an epiphany will permanently solve the problem of limitation…which is patently untrue.  It does not take into account that experience does not permanently remove self ignorance.      There is no need to repeat the arguments why enlightenment is not an experience.

A Final, Entertaining and Complex Pauranic Story

Vishnu is a peaceful, compassionate, intelligent deity because the self is peace, intelligence and non-dual wisdom. Non-dual wisdom is a synonym for compassion because a wise person sees everything as his or her own self and only expresses good will to others. Vishnu is a protector and savior of human beings and comes to their aid whenever the need arises. By hearing his story, visiting his temple at Tirupathi and having the experience of his form, the devotee is promised liberation. Since life in this changing world is fraught with insecurity, liberation is considered the highest goal of life.

When there is a decline in righteousness in the world and living a holy life becomes difficult, Vishnu, the all-pervading impersonal formless self, takes a form and appears on earth to re-establish Dharma. The story of his incarnation begins when Narada, a celestial devotee of Vishnu and son of the Creator, Brahma, goes to his father and informs him that the earth is suffering a period of materialism and lawlessness.

Narada represents the enlightened mind, one that rests permanently in the self. His father said, “You will always be going around the universe. There is nothing unknown to you. Merely by thinking you can create a problem and solve it too. I don’t need to teach you anything or do anything for you. Do what is necessary to rectify the situation. I wish you all success.”

So Narada took leave and went to earth chanting the name of Vishnu. When he reached the Ganges banks he came upon a group of sages performing a sacrificial ritual, a yagna, for the universal good. The yagna was the fundamental spiritual practice of Vedic times. Sages, enlightened people, do not worship for personal gain but for the spiritual welfare of the world by honoring the deities proscribed in the Vedas. The deities are the positive spiritual forces in the total mind that keep individuals on the path of Dharma. They are the link between the formless self, the source of everything, and life on earth. These gods ‘feed’ on the oblations offered into the sacrificial fires, meaning that the cosmos functions because of the principle of sacrifice, each part offering what it has for the good of the total. For example, trees receive carbon dioxide from various sources and produce life giving oxygen that is useful to other life forms. Human beings who hoard and accumulate things only for themselves disturb the natural sacrificial order of the cosmos,  Dharma.   Everything  animate  and  inanimate  follows  the

program imprinted on it by the divine non-dual consciousness from which it comes. Plants and animals automatically follow their dharma but human beings, because they have lost their connection to the self and exercise free will can choose to contravene it; they behave selfishly. Selfish behavior disturbs the cosmic order. To rectify this situation spiritual people (sages) make offerings for the good of the world.

The ritual lasted many days and during a break Narada, who had a reputation for making trouble, asked the sages which of the Trimurtis¹⁸

(Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) would receive the yagna effect.¹⁹     His

provocative question set them to thinking. Each felt that the good karma of the Yagna should go to his personal deity and eventually the yagna turned into a heated debate.

When he saw that he had provoked them enough, Narada suggested that Brighu, a great sage who had acquired exceptional powers from long and arduous penance, test the three gods to determine who was worthy of the yagna benefits. Not only was Brighu the most powerful sage, he possessed a gargantuan spiritual ego and Narada had in mind to give him an assignment that would cut him down to size.

Flattered, Brighu left the yagna and went to satya loka, the ‘realm of truth,’ where Brahma and his consort, Saraswati, the Divine Mother, were seated near their throne conversing with some celestial denizens. Brighu strode haughtily into the room and sat on Brahma’s throne without acknowledging the Creator’s presence. Brahma felt inclined to lecture Brighu and said, “A person who acquires such great power through yoga should also be humble and well-mannered. But you think you are superior to everyone, including me, the Creator. Who do you think you are? ”

Brighu got off the throne and thought, “Owing to an excess of

rajoguna²⁰ Brahma is exceptionally proud and does not deserve the

yagna effect.” Before he strode off in a huff he said to Brahma. “You, not me, are lacking in manners. You made no attempt to understand why I had come but continued your conversation with these exalted

¹⁸ Tri means three. Murti means form. The ‘three forms’ are Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva, the Destroyer. In Vedanta, the three forms are considered to be the self, formless consciousness, functioning as the universal forces that create, preserve and destroy.

¹⁹ Since this is a self conscious universe every action has an effect. Religious rituals are a specific kind of action that have a subtle effect on the minds of those who perform them and on those for whom the ritual is performed.

²⁰ Three subtle energies make up the universe of names and forms, sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva is responsible for preservation, tamas for destruction, and rajas for creation. Rajas is a projecting energy that makes a person very passionate. Religious ritual has very little long term effect on persons who are burdened with this temperament because their minds are so disturbed by its greedy grasping energy that they are not suitable recipients of its beneficial effects.

celestials when I arrived. Not only that, you had the temerity to rebuke me. Therefore I curse you. You will not have any temples on earth and will not be worshipped.” (Because of this story there is only one temple dedicated to Brahma in all of India. Temples are as ubiquitous in India as supermarkets, gas stations and fast food joints are in America.)

Next Brighu approached Kailas, the holy mountain where Lord Shiva lives. The whole Himalayan range echoed with the sound of Shiva’s disciples chanting his holy name.  At the time Shiva happened to be in his bedroom making love with his wife, the Divine Mother Parvati. (lovemaking symbolizes the union of the two fundamental cosmic principles, spirit (pure consciousness) and matter (energy). Brighu strode proudly in without knocking. Parvati covered herself and Shiva aimed his Trishool²¹ at Brighu and said. “You belong to the same race as the Creator. You are a very learned and powerful man who knows the Vedas and has done extreme penance, yet you are completely lacking in manners. Leave immediately or I will destroy you.”

Brighu was unbowed and said, “You may be a big god but you are the one lacking in manners. You ignored me and continued to make love with your wife without even inquiring why I had come. Now you point your Trishool at me and insult me. Had you shown some culture, you might have been the recipient of the yagna effect, but now you will receive my curse. You will be worshipped on earth only in the form of a linga (idol) and not in your real shape.”²²

When Brighu arrived at Vaikunta he saw Vishnu reclining on the infinite coils of the cosmic serpent Sesha who was floating on an endless ocean of milk. Vishnu was surrounded by worshipful gods and goddesses and his wife Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, was hidden in his heart. Vishnu, who is omniscient, saw Brighu coming and divined his purpose but pretended to be unaware of the sage. Remembering his treatment at the hands of Brahma and Shiva Brighu became furious, rushed up to Vishnu and kicked him violently in the chest, the abode of Laxmi.

Vishnu, who is never perturbed, took the insult without batting an eye. In fact he got up from his royal seat, took Brighu by the hand, led him to Sesha’s coils, sat him down and proceeded to massage his right foot which had sustained a terrible injury since it struck a huge jewel that

²¹ A trident, the self as weapon. The trident is the self manifesting as the three energies. This action is equivalent to threatening someone with a firearm.

²² The self cannot be objectified into a form in reality but, for the purpose of gaining an abiding mind, it can be worshipped through symbols. The word ‘linga’ means a sign or symbol. The Shiva lingam, mistakenly thought to be a phallic symbol, is a symbol of formless consciousness, the self. It is always embedded in a yoni, a womb, which symbolizes the world of forms: Energy and Matter. The union of the lingam and the yoni is a symbol of the perfect union of Spirit and Energy or Matter. The ‘union of spirit and matter’ means that they are not inherently two different things, although they appear to have contradictory natures.

he wore on his chest. As he was massaging the foot he surreptitiously opened Brighu’s third eye which lay in his foot and said, “Oh, great and learned man, forgive my negligence. I didn’t see you. This injury you received is due to me. But we need not worry as it is part of the divine plan and we are only instruments.”

This incident is rife with many layers of symbolism. The ocean of milk symbolizes the divine mind; the cosmic snake with infinite coils the infinite spiritual potential of the cosmos. Vishnu represents the self. In this story he stands for sattva, the mind that is calm and peaceful, the mind that knows the truth, one that does not react to events. The wound Brighu receives as karmic retribution for his arrogant behavior softens him up so he can hear the truth. The opening of his ‘third eye’ means that Vishnu gave Brighu self knowledge. Self knowledge is the only cure for egoism. The ‘right’ foot symbolizes the humility that comes from living a righteous life. Brighu was ready for self knowledge owing to his long and arduous spiritual work. The only obstacle to his enlightenment was his ego, which Vishnu deflated by his compassionate non- attachment. When the mind is pure, sattvic, it is dispassionate, non- reactive. Brighu, by his aggression, expected Vishnu to react, but when he did not, he became aware of his own anger and was forced to let it go, setting himself up for the opening of his third eye which was accomplished by the Upanishadic teaching, “Tat tvam asi” a Sanskrit statement indicating one’s identity with the self.

Brighu realized that Vishnu, an embodiment of sattvaguna,²³ was

the only god qualified to receive the blessings of the sacrifice, so he returned to the Ganges and informed the sages who were very happy. The yagna continued for forty days and on the last day Vishnu appeared to receive its effects. He then returned to his heavenly abode.

He arrived to find his wife Laxmi in a terrible state. She had taken Brighu’s kick as an insult and was furious that her husband had treated the proud sage with such kindness. She said, “You are the head of the whole cosmos, you command the respect of millions of gods and billions of creatures, yet you loved and served that vain Marharshi who dared to

kick you in the chest where I live.²⁴ I cannot tolerate your behavior.”

“Calm down, my dear,” said Vishnu. “Don’t you realize that Brighu is my devotee and it is my duty to save devotees?               Will parents get

angry and punish their children when they are kicked?²⁵ He came here

with a purpose, not to dishonor me. His actions were part of the divine plan. Why worry about it?”

²³ The quality of luminous clarity, conducive to understanding.

²⁴ Laxmi is the goddess of wealth. Wealth is a symbol of bhakti, devotion to God, our greatest asset. When the pride strikes the self in the heart, it drives out love.

²⁵ A fine bit of pedagogical advice. Don’t punish children for selfish behavior. Understand the limitation of their understanding and give them love and wisdom.

“Since you are the intelligence that runs the entire cosmos, you are exceptionally clever at justifying your actions, but I will not swallow your lame arguments. I am leaving you once and for all. And I will not leave that arrogant Brahmin unpunished!”

So she cursed that the entire Brahmin community would be deprived of wealth and would only subsist by selling their knowledge.²⁶ She then prostrated to her husband and went to a lonely place on earth where she sat in meditation.

When Laxmi left Heaven lost its festive appearance. Because she was the goddess of wealth all the money went with her and the citizens began to suffer poverty. They did not enjoy their new status so they went to Vishnu and requested him to persuade his wife to return. Feeling their distress he went to earth in search of his beloved. Tired and exhausted after searching many days he eventually arrived at the Tirupathi hills and took shelter in an ant hill under a tamarind tree where he sat in meditation praying for the return of his wife.²⁷

During his stay on earth Vishnu suffered all the problems that befall human beings and ended up falling in love and marrying another woman. The marriage caused him a big problem because he was a pauper since his wife, the Goddess of Wealth, deserted him. As he was thinking about the problem Narada appeared and suggested that he take a loan from Kubera, the cosmic treasurer. Kubera agreed. Vishnu promised to pay interest until the end of the Kali Yuga and return the principal immediately thereafter.

The wedding was a festive affair attended by beings from all the fourteen worlds, subtle and gross. When it was over the bride and bridegroom spent six months enjoying the beauty of the Tirupathi hills. The Lord so enjoyed himself that he decided to reside there until the end of the Kali Yuga. To that end he asked two kings to build him a temple

on the hill above Tirupathi at a place now called Tirumala.²⁸    At the

inauguration of the temple the Lord entered and lit two lamps that will burn until the end of the present Yuga.

While all these events were taking place Laxmi was still deep in meditation, unaware of what was happening and the whereabouts of her husband. She saw Narada walking by chanting the name of Vishnu and called him over. After expressing her concern about her husband’s fate Narada said, “Why worry?  He is quite happy with his new wife,

²⁶ A ‘Brahmin’ is a person with a pure mind, one that is responsible for keeping the idea of truth alive in the culture. The idea is that wealth and spiritual knowledge do not mix.

²⁷ When you lose your love, you lose your composure and need to turn within to find it. The anthill is a common Vedic symbol of the cave of the heart where the mind can meditate on the self.

²⁸ The temple at Tirumala is the most spiritually powerful temple in India. It is visited by tens of thousands of devotees on a daily basis. Because of the generosity of the devotees it is second only to the Vatican in terms of material wealth.

Padmavati. Isn’t it strange that he married a new woman without your knowledge?”

The news so upset her that she rushed to Tirupathi and confronted Vishnu and his new bride. The women immediately began quarreling. Vishnu couldn’t stand the racket, silently stepped back and converted himself into a stone idol. Realizing they had lost their beloved the women began to weep.²⁹

Then Vishnu said to Laxmi. “I have borrowed a lot of money from the cosmic treasurer for my wedding and am deeply in debt. I don’t like this situation and am always thinking how to pay the steep rate of interest. I request that you give my devotees very much wealth so they will be tempted to sin more and pray to me for relief. I will appear in dreams and visions and advise them to fill my coffers in the form of offerings to facilitate the fulfillment of their vows.”³⁰

Laxmi agreed.

Then he said, “My chest, which was polluted when Brighu kicked me has since been purified through all the trials and tribulations I have gone through while on earth looking for you. You may therefore occupy

your original place.³¹    Laxmi was pleased with the Lord’s words and

occupied her place on the right side of his chest while Padmavati occupied the place on the left.

The symbolism of the descent of Vishnu and his installation as the diety at Triupathi is profound and complex. The following is a brief summary. The sage Brighu (the spiritual ego) kicks the God Vishnu, (the self), in the chest (the spiritual Heart) where his wife the Divine Mother Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth (read love or wisdom) lives. Angered by this blow she leaves heaven (the state of union with God) and goes to earth (the place where people suffer owing to lack of self love) where she undertakes rigorous penance (meditation) to regain her peace of mind. The self is not happy without love so Vishnu comes down to earth to find his wife. Unlike the Biblical variant, which condemns the divine couple and their offspring to endless suffering, the Vedic Adam and Eve are reunited after a series of trials and tribulations.

²⁹ Bad thoughts and anger turn love to stone.

³⁰ While they contain deep spiritual and psychological truths, the Puranas do not take themselves too seriously. This extraordinary idea is to be taken as a joke, although an important truth is contained in it: when you’re too materially comfortable you tend to make trouble for yourself and may be attracted to religion as a way out. The worldwide resurgence of spirituality in the last twenty years might be caused in large part by the incredible material success of the Western world.

³¹ Brighu’s kick was an act of unrestrained egoism. Such tendencies can only be purified by acts of penance.

Though it is not essential to self-inquiry, it really helps to understand some of the history of Vedanta and its scriptural texts in order to fully grasp what it is and how it works. There is nothing else available to us that compares if you understand what Vedanta says about the true nature of your existence and of all Existence.

Vedanta – The Science of Consciousness

Veda Anta, Vedanta, is a doctrinal teaching at the end of the Vedas, which are the sacred, impersonal, and eternal scriptures of Hindu tradition. There are four Vedas; the first three pertain to the person living in the world, covering different aspects of physical life, and are for obtaining desired results. They are the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, and lastly, the Atharva Veda. The last section of the fourth and last Veda deals exclusively with the true nature of reality as a nonduality and is called Vedanta, which literally means ‘the Knowledge that ends the quest for Knowledge’.  Its main teachings are unfolded in the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita.

The Vedas form the ancient tradition called the Sanantana Dharma (the Eternal Way), which originated in what is now called India, but was once called Bharat, meaning the Land of Light—or “The People Who Uphold Righteousness”—between 6 000 – 7 000 years ago. This point has been argued by many scholars, but most agree that the Vedas are at least 3 500 old, making Vedanta the oldest scriptural teaching on the planet. But in truth, Vedanta has no age because it is not in time; it is the eternal truth of existence so has no beginning or end.

Although Vedanta originates from Vedic culture, the basic teaching is universal in that its fundamental principle is that reality is non-dual as opposed to a duality. It reveals that there is only one principle operating, in which everything has its origin and is made up of, and that is Consciousness.  Therefore, Vedanta in essence is not specific to any culture, race, or religion as Consciousness does not “belong” to anyone.  It is who we are.  The methodology or means of knowledge Vedanta uses to unfold the eternal unchanging nondual teachings was developed and perfected by the Indian culture, most recently updated by Sri Adi Shankaracharya in the 8^th Century AD.

Though the methodology of Vedanta is accredited to the Hindu religion, it is nonetheless, not part of any religion or philosophy. Many Indian people of today or long ago are and were as ignorant of the nondual teachings of the Vedas as any Westerner. Their focus, like most people on the planet, is making life work with as much ease as possible, which is why the first three Vedas teach exclusively how to do that. Only at the very end of the last Veda does Vedanta emerge for those who have realized that life is a zero-sum game and are ready for the ultimate teaching.

But in general, the big difference between the Indian and Western cultures is that the former is culturally steeped in and guided by a devotional attitude to the idea of God as universal and omnipresent, symbolized in any form or no form.  Hence their pantheon of many God symbols and ubiquitous devotional rituals. Nonetheless, Vedanta spread throughout the East and West influencing the spiritual traditions of the whole world. It is the truth that underpins all truth, whether you are aware of it or not. The Sanatanana Dharma is alive and well, and always will be.

Vedanta is Independent of Any Person

Vedanta is taken to be a philosophy by many, but it predates all known religious or philosophical paths because it is independent of any person or path. It is a sruti, which means that which is heard, and it was originally transmitted orally. Another term used to describe Vedanta is apauruseya jnanam, meaning not the philosophy, belief, or experience of one person like a prophet or a mystic, as in the Buddha, Jesus, or Abraham.  Religions and philosophical teachings are the personal fabrications, beliefs, and contentions of people, be they great thinkers or not. They are thus subject to the contamination of personal views, and of change. Vedanta is neither subject to change nor contaminated by personal views, though it can be taught or understood incorrectly. If the ego co-opts the teachings, what we call enlightenment sickness, they will definitely become corrupted. But that does not change the teachings. It only means that they will not work for their intended purpose, which is to end suffering by removing ignorance of your true nature.

The Science of Consciousness

Vedanta is a “brahma vidya” which means the Science of Consciousness.  It is an objective and scientific analysis of the true nature of reality (and your experience), based on the facts. These facts are delivered in proofs called prakriyas. They are arrived at not with empirical proof but by negating all non-essential variables, leaving the one essential non-negatable fact: that you are conscious.  You can never deny this as to do so, you must be conscious.  The point is, how does being conscious relate to your identity, and how does knowledge of this set you free of suffering?  Therein lies all the teaching of Vedanta.

Like any other science, Vedanta is not personal, and it has a methodology, which, if followed with great dedication and commitment, will provide irrefutable knowledge that is freedom from limitation and suffering, moksha, or Self-knowledge, if the student is qualified.  Vedanta is simply the truth about you.  Not your truth or my truth or anyone’s truth:  The Truth.

The Truth, Self-knowledge, unlike object knowledge, stands on its own and is always true because it is true to the Self; meaning it cannot be dismissed or negated by any other knowledge.  Self-knowledge is different from knowledge of objects, which is object-based, not subject based.  Knowledge of objects is not knowledge unless it is true to the object.  If I am looking at a dog and my eyes and mind are functional, I will not see a cat. If it is “my” knowledge, then it is my subjective interpretation of an object (pratibasika), which is not necessarily knowledge. Ignorance (or my point of view) causes me to see or experience objects in a certain way because of “my” conditioning, or premature cognitive commitments.  People believe that ignorance is knowledge because they believe that what they experience is knowledge.  It may be knowledge, but it may not be. Self-knowledge is neither confirmed nor negated by anyone’s opinions or experience because it is free of experience.

Vedanta is Revealed Knowledge

Vedanta is revealed tothe mind of man, not thought up by man, nor is it the result of any action on anyone’s part. Therefore, you can trust it. So, what do we mean by revealed?  Don’t all religions claim this?  What Vedanta means by revealed is simple.  A good example of revealed knowledge is Einstein’s ‘discovery’ of the law of relativity and gravity or Thomas Edison’s discovery of electricity.  To discover the means to uncover something that was there but previously unknown.  Relativity, gravity, and electricity describe how the world works according to the laws of physics, not according to Einstein or Edison.  Gravity, relativity, and electricity do not care if you believe in them.  They operate the same way whether you understand what they are or not.

It is the same with Awareness.  Awareness does not care if you have realized your true nature or not because it is unaffected by knowledge or ignorance.  You are the Self whether you know it or not. Liberation from ignorance is for the apparent person who lives in the apparent reality.  As Awareness, you have always been free, which is why moksa or freedom is discriminating you, Awareness, from the objects that appear in you, including ‘your’ body/mind. In other words, dis-identifying with the person as your primary identity, AND knowing what that means so that Self-knowledge translates into all areas of life. Vedanta is freedom from the person and for the person.

The Main Texts of Vedanta

The Upanishads, the Brahman Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita (Puranas)

1. The Puranas. 

The Puranas form the basis of the Hindu religion and are mythological ideas or stories taught in the way of forms such as symbols and rituals. They were originally intended for people who were not sophisticated enough to understand or worship the formless.  The reason for this was that unqualified people could gain Self-knowledge by implication from the form to the formless.  All Puranas are really the Vedas in code. There are many important Puranas, and the most important of all is the Bhagavad Gita, which is told in the form of an allegory. (Some schools of Vedic thought do not consider it a Purana). If properly understood and taught (which is often not the case), the Gita unfolds the whole methodology of Vedanta.

The Bhagavad Gita—The Song of God—is one of the world’s most important spiritual documents in so far as it is the essence of the Upanishads, humanity’s most ancient extant texts on the science of life. It provides a timeless solution to the existential crises that we all face at some point in our lives.  The Gita is part of the Mahabharata (ostensibly written by Vedavyasa) and was written about 300 years before the birth of Christ. It is believed by some to be historical and to have actually happened but there is no actual proof for this.

2. The Upanishads

The Upanishads are revealed texts. The meaning of the word Upanishad is Self-knowledge, and they are generally for advanced inquirers because none of them contains the whole methodology of Vedanta. While the stories contained in the Upanishads seem simple, if the background and meaning of the symbols is not properly unfolded, it is easy to get confused. There are more than 200 Upanishads, the first 10 being the most important. Some of the Upanishads are referenced by an author, but authorship has no bearing on what they are imparting because it is the timeless and impersonal knowledge of the Self, Consciousness. The authorship is in the form of commentaries (karikas) which unfold the meaning of the texts. The essence of all the Upanishad is the core teaching of Vedanta, which is:

Knowing that because of which everything is as good as known. It addresses the value of inference in accepting your identity as Awareness.

3. The Brahma Sutras

The last scriptural text included in the Vedanta Pramana (means of knowledge) is the Brahma Sutras, which are a collection of intellectual discourses regarding very subtle issues collected and published by Badarayana. They are complicated discussions that are not necessary for self-inquiry but are useful for teachers of Vedanta to understand the finer details of the Vedanta doctrine.

(See Texts Suggested for The Three Stages of Self-Inquiry in the Steps for Self-inquiry, below).

A Word of Caution: You Cannot Study Vedanta

Vedanta or Non-duality is not a theory in practice. Though it is imperative that you apply your mind to the teachings and commit them to memory, ultimately, you cannot study Vedanta like you would a degree in university.  Many inquirers get stuck believing that if they can parrot the teachings or learn Sanskrit, they are Self-realized. But even though all teachings require an intellectual understanding, the difference with Vedanta is that it is not a philosophical thought system. It is who you are. There is no distance between the subject matter of Vedanta and you.  Vedanta requires a certain kind of intellect – one that is refined, purified, and surrendered so that it is capable of assimilating the meaning of the teachings, which are extremely subtle and therefore, very counter-intuitive. Some inquirers are in love with their ability to think and have a lot of ego around their own ideas and intelligence, so it is harder for them to put their thinking aside.

Self-inquiry requires training the intellect to think differently and to want different things. While we need an intellect, it is not the intellect that removes ignorance. It is just an object known to you, the Self. You cannot ‘think your way to ‘enlightenment’ because it is the ego, the doer, doing the thinking. The ego must surrender to a qualified teacher and the teachings and trust Self-knowledge to scour the mind of ignorance. And lastly, it is not necessary to have more than a very rudimentary knowledge of some basic Sanskrit terms (most mentioned in this article) to undertake self-inquiry. Only a very few Sanskrit terms have no good English equivalents, most do.

The Three Non-negotiable Factors to Begin Self-Inquiry

1. Motivation: You need to be so tired of suffering that you are ready to commit to understanding what causes it.

2. Qualifications: All the qualifications noted below are essential to succeed at self-inquiry. But if they are not, you can develop them. To begin self-inquiry though, you need at very least the entry-level qualification, which is the realization that it is pointless trying to find happiness in objects. I.e., you have seen the futility of chasing your desires or trying to avoid your aversions. You know there must be something more to this life.

3. Faith: You need enough faith in the teachings to sign on to self-inquiry and stick with it. If you do not trust the teachings, they will not work for you.

No Fast Track

We live in a world where we are accustomed to and expect fast results, and the spiritual world is no different. In fact, in many ways, a lot of spiritually driven people are even more materialistic and egotistical than purely materialistic worldly people. But with Vedanta, you must accept that you are not the boss.  If you cannot surrender to the teachings and follow the methodology because you are goal-oriented, lacking in motivation or qualifications, Self-knowledge will just not obtain. There is no fine print to this.

Even if the mind is highly qualified and dedicated to self-inquiry, it does not work to rush inquiry because you will invariably skip or miss building a good foundation, which will hold you up at some point. So be warned, Vedanta is not for the egotistical, those in a hurry, the faint of heart, or the unqualified. It is the most rigorous and challenging teaching available for the mind and will challenge everything you thought you knew. It will force you to face the less-than-fabulous aspects of your personality. But not to fix them; only to understand and negate them as not-me, so as to be free of them. Freedom is not something you ‘get’ overnight, which is why Vedanta appeals to so few people. Only a mature and pure mind is capable of assimilating Self-knowledge, hence the necessity for qualifications.  (See below).

Some Advice to The Aspiring Inquirer

Most inquirers who come to Vedanta have a ton of indoctrination from other teachings to work through. It’s not that there is anything wrong with other teachings, but most other teachings are unclear about what the Self is, nor are they able to explain the apparent reality with reference to the Self, other than through their own experiences or beliefs. There is no other teaching available that has a completely independent (meaning not dependent on any person) and valid means of knowledge capable of revealing the Self.  Vedanta does not give us something we do not already have.  You are not going to gain anything through Vedanta because it tells you right up front that you are already free because you are and always have been, the Self.

But if you don’t know that or understand what it means then ignorance (Maya or that which makes the unchanging Self appear to be changing) deludes the mind into the belief that reality is a duality. Vedanta sets the mind free of the hypnosis of duality, revealing your true, ever-present, unchanging ever-full nature to be the nondual Self.

The teachings of Vedanta are not exclusive to Vedanta. They are to be found wherever there is a non-dual teaching that is independent (stands alone) and is capable of revealing what it means to be the Self. But the problem with other teachings such as Buddhism or Neo-Advaita and some religions is that they do not teach the whole methodology of non-duality, nor do they offer the tools to help you translate the non-dual teachings in a practical way into your life, such as karma yoga, to name just one. Worse, while they may have aspects of non-duality, ignorance is woven fine with knowledge.  Unless you understand the difference between duality (mithya) and non-duality (Satya), you will not be able to discriminate between knowledge and ignorance, so freedom will not obtain.

Most other paths do not teach what God is nor the shared identity between you, God, and Awareness. All religions teach that God is a bigger better albeit ‘divine’ person, separate from you, whom you must obey, or else. Vedanta teaches that God is the creator and sustainer of the creation, and the creation runs on certain laws the jiva must obey to live happily and well. It explains the common identity between God, man/the world, and the Self thus negating the need to believe in anything.  Only Self-knowledge sets you free, and that is independent of belief because it is your true nature. Buddhism and much of the spiritual teachings outside of Vedanta are based on yoga whose primary aim is to improve the person and get rid of the mind. They teach that it is in ending desire through meditation and good deeds that we ‘attain enlightenment’. It’s all about doing something to gain something. 

But Vedanta explains that we cannot improve the person nor get rid of the mind because they are not real, they are duality (mithya), and—not the problem. Identification with the person, the doer, i.e., ignorance of your true nature as Satya, is the real problem, not the mind. It is neither possible nor necessary to get rid of the mind (ego); it can only be understood to be not-Self through the removal of ignorance by Self-knowledge. Freedom from ignorance cannot be obtained by doing because you cannot gain something you already have; the Self is not an object of experience. It is impossible to objectify the Self because it is not an object of experience. As the Self, you are the subject and that which you seek. 

Once the true nature of the mind is known to be the Self, binding vasanas are rendered non-binding by Self-knowledge, and the sense of doership is negated.  But the mind remains—and no longer troubles the individual person (jiva) anymore. You can live free of the person as the Self, while also living free as a person, and never confusing the two again. However, purely cognitive understanding does not remove suffering. To understand what Vedanta teaches, qualifications are necessary for discrimination between the Self or Satya (that which is always present and unchanging), and the objects that appear in it, that which is apparently real, meaning the jiva, and the world—mithya (that which is always changing and not always present).  Therein lies the rub. It is one thing to understand what freedom is but that does not set you free, necessarily. To live free as the Self requires the hard and fast full assimilation of what it means to be the Self and not the jiva plus all three steps of self-inquiry to be completed. (These are outlined below).

Many people who are close in their understanding of the common identity between the creator (God or Isvara) and the person or Jiva is Consciousness/Awareness, do not realize that they still objectify the Self. There is an unconscious belief that the Self is something other than them, something to gain.  There is still a subtle identification with the person, so they personalize the Self, thinking that by ‘the Self’ we mean the reflection of the Self, the jiva, or the person.  The Self is the source of the reflection, which is caused by Maya.

To break the spell of Maya, which is the hypnosis of duality, and take your primary identity as Consciousness, we need a means of knowledge capable of deconstructing who or what the jiva is, what Isvara (God, or the creative principle) refers to and why, and what is the same and what is different about both. For Self-knowledge to translate into the life of the jiva, mithya must be understood in the light of Self-knowledge, not in light of our own subjective or limited understanding.  Mithya may not be real, but it is not going to disappear just because you have realized your true nature to be the Self, Consciousness, the source of all. 

Self-realization is where the ‘work’ of Self-inquiry begins. Self-Actualization is quite another other matter. To succeed at self-inquiry means thinking in a whole new context: that of nonduality and this is far from easy. Your jiva conditioning is hard-wired in duality.  So, go slowly. You need to assimilate and understand the logic every step of the way to get the ‘big picture” and for Self-knowledge to stick. 

What Does Self-Inquiry Entail?

As stated above, self-inquiry involves an analysis of what makes up and governs the Field of Existence, which includes the individual, with the aim of negating our dependence on objects for happiness. It is to discriminate between non-duality and duality, i.e., between experience (the object/effect) and Consciousness, the subject/cause. There is a world of a difference between these two perspectives because it reveals that an object is anything other than me, the knower of objects, i.e., Consciousness, the Self.  The objects I know include my little self, whom I have thus far taken to be ‘me’. But it is not the ‘real’ me.

Self-inquiry conducted correctly produces non-dual vision.  Non-dual vision is permanent freedom from limitation because it is not only about understanding our conditioning and story; it is freeing ourselves of both. If we have non-conforming lifestyles, we will not succeed at self-inquiry. Self-inquiry is not seeking, it is about becoming a finder.  Vedanta is a common sense and logical set of proven principles that work to simplify the complexities of the mind and prepare it to assimilate the knowledge that sets us free of suffering.  For a simple and peaceful life healthy lifestyle habits in eating, sleeping, working, relationships, sex, money, recreating habits, etc., must be cultivated in accordance with the scripture, not the other way around. Everything that is not in line with the teachings must be renounced.

Where to Begin?

Before beginning self-inquiry, ask yourself: “What are my true values and motivations?  Am I genuinely interested in improving the quality of my life?  If you are, then it is reasonable to assume that if you could improve it on your own, you would already have done so by now.  In this case, put aside what you think you know, refrain from reading through the filters of your existing beliefs and opinions, and keep a willingness to be ignorant, wrong, or misinformed. You can always take your opinions back if you like them so much better.  But if in cherry-picking ideas you discard what you don’t like or agree with, confirmation bias will be operating (among other biases) and you will be wasting your time.

To succeed at self-inquiry, you must commit yourself to following the logic and methodology of the steps as they are presented in the scripture. If you try to fit the teachings into your own ideas or try to tailor them to fit in with your beliefs, self-inquiry will not work to remove ignorance. The teachings are extremely methodical. Vedanta is a progressive teaching which is designed to answer every doubt. Sign on to the logic and don’t skip ahead until you know you have understood and assimilated each step. If you rush through the steps because you think you know better, you are defeating the purpose and you are clearly more invested in your own ideas.

Apply the steps to your thinking and see how this affects your life. Self-inquiry is about applied knowledge, so if it does not translate into your life and you see no benefit, it is never the teaching at fault.  There are two main reasons the teachings do not assimilate, and self-inquiry may thus fail for you.  The first is that your lifestyle is not in accordance with dharma and must be cleaned up.  The second reason is a lack of qualifications and unaltered thinking or lack of motivation in putting the teachings into practice. 

Furthermore, you must be properly taught because the mind is conditioned to think a certain way.  Non-duality is counter-intuitive – it is a provocative teaching designed to give rise to doubts, which it also answers.  Unguided the mind will interpret what it hears or reads according to its conditioning, and Self-knowledge will not obtain. You may ‘get it’ for a while and then ‘unget it’ for the reasons mentioned above, basically because the mind has not been sufficiently purified. Also, there are apparent contradictions within the teachings that are not real contradictions and need to be resolved by a qualified teacher. And there is one more factor to consider, grace.  It is only by the grace of God that anything happens—and grace is earned. 

Qualifications Required

We need qualifications to succeed at anything in the world.  So, it stands to reason that there should be qualifications for self-inquiry as well. Although not all the qualifications need to be present, to begin with, they must be understood and developed. 

The Most Important Qualifications Are:

1. The burning desire for liberation from bondage to objects: meaning one has understood that there is nothing to gain through objects, that there is no joy inherent in them.  I desire above all to understand my true nature and have stopped chasing objects.

2. Faith in the teachings – not blind faith, faith pending the outcome of your investigation. If you cannot check your beliefs ‘at the door’, self-inquiry will not work for you. You must be prepared to forego your attachment to other teachings, at least temporarily.

3. Dispassion: in brief non-attachment to outcome, i.e., karma yoga, surrendering the results of actions to Isvara or the Field of Existence with an attitude of gratitude.

4. Discrimination:  the ability to discriminate what is changeless or real (Consciousness) from that which is changing or only seemingly real (all objects – which include the mind and body, thoughts, and emotions, in other words, anything other than Consciousness, the real you).

5. Control of the senses and of the organs of action. This includes thought/emotion management, speaking, and all activities especially sensory ones like eating and sex.

Requirements And Pointers for Self-Inquiry

Many inquirers do not understand what self-inquiry entails and that if you commit to it, you need to relinquish control because you are locked into a predetermined sadhana.  You are no longer the boss.  The whole point of self-inquiry is to bring that wilful self-centered ego into line with scripture, which is Isvara’s words. If the vasana tail is still wagging the dog, it is important to accept that fact and follow the program of self-inquiry to the letter. 

First and most important, self-inquiry should be the most important part of your day, not incidental to it if you truly want freedom from existential suffering. If self-inquiry does not translate into your life, it will have minimal benefit to you. For the mind to assimilate Self-knowledge, all three stages of inquiry outlined below must be completed, methodically and thoroughly, not necessarily in a linear fashion. Most inquirers will weave in and out of the stages as their doubts arise and get dispelled by the teachings.  Vedanta is taught in a very specific way for a very good reason – the mind is very conservative, and ignorance is hard-wired and tenacious.

As stated, but bears repeating because it is so important and so many forget, self-inquiry is not like taking a degree at a university with a standard curriculum and goals to achieve. You are not going to ‘achieve’ enlightenment. Every inquirer is different and thus has different needs, but the only thing that is a standard requirement for each inquirer is that they are sufficiently qualified, surrendered to Isvara with karma yoga, dedicated to moksa, and properly taught. If you have the required faith in the teachings and are truly dedicated, Isvara is the deciding factor on whether moksa obtains. No teacher of Vedanta however good can enlighten you or remove your ignorance, only facilitate the teachings. Nothing the jiva ‘does’ is going to achieve freedom either. There are no guarantees and no goals to achieve because you are already the Self.  All Vedanta can do for you is give you the tools to apply to your mind so that Self-knowledge can do the work of removing ignorance preventing you from appreciating this fact, setting you permanently free of suffering.

The doer does not get enlightened, nor can it ‘do’ its way to enlightenment. Yes, you must be very dedicated to your sadhana, no doubt about that. And that is a kind of doing, but a very different doing because it involves karma yoga. Which means it is a doing surrendered to Isvara. Self-inquiry is not easy, there are no shortcuts. But karma yoga and trust in Isvara will get you ‘there’, where you are already if it is Isvara’s will. Only Self-knowledge can remove ignorance, not the ego.

The Texts Suggested for Each Stage of Self-Inquiry

Beginners

1. Tattva Bodh (Shankara): Explains the basic terminology and language used in Vedanta. Vedanta is a means of Self-knowledge through words called a sabda pramana. It gives you direct knowledge of your eternal nature through the implied meaning of words when they are unfolded through a specific methodology called the sampradaya. But because all language is inherently dualistic, the use of words and terms is influenced by many factors, both in the speaker and the one listening.  Most people speak the language of experience (duality), but Vedanta speaks the language of identity—that of the Self (non-duality). However, it is still confined to using words to teach and all words are open to interpretation. So, for self-inquiry to work, where the ostensible meaning does not work (the ostensible meaning is the meaning stated but not necessarily true), Vedanta teaches with the implied meaning, based on logic. It is extremely careful with the use of words and terminology, and Tattva Bodh explains this well.

2. The Essence of Enlightenment and/or How to Attain Enlightenment by James Swartz are essential for self-inquiry as they unfold the whole methodology of the teachings from beginner to advanced inquirer. All you need to succeed at self-inquiry is found in these two books. For beginners, the first five chapters of either book explain the foundations of Vedanta: Motivations, Values, Dharma, Qualifications, and very importantly karma yoga.

3. Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 1 – 5: Explains the foundations for moksa and self-inquiry.

3. The Yoga of Love (Swartz): Explains the importance of devotional practice, bhakti yoga.  All are required to succeed at self-inquiry.

4. Vedanta, the Big Picture (Swami Paramarthananda): Offers another concise overview of the whole teaching methodology of Vedanta.

Intermediate Inquirer:

1. Chapters 5 – 10 of Bhagavad Gita, the Essence of Enlightenment and/or How to Attain Enlightenment. Unfolds jnana yoga, the teachings on the identity between Isvara and jiva, and the gunas, which are the three psychological forces behind everything in creation. (Explained below).

2. Aparokshanubhuti (Shankara) Intermediate: Explains the difference between knowledge and experience.

3. Vivekachudamani (Shankara): Unfolds discrimination between the Self and the three bodies or five sheaths.

4. The Yoga of the Three Energies (James Swartz):  Essential to unfold the teaching on the three gunas.

Advanced Inquirer

1. Bhagavad Gita, last five chapters: Explains what it means to be Self-realized and Self-Actualized.

2. The Essence and How to Attain, last five chapters: Same as above.

3. Inquiry into Existence (commentaries on Panchadasi) by James Swartz:  Essential to unfold the identity between the person (jiva), the creation (Jagat), and the creator (Isvara).

4. The Mandukya Karika, commentaries by James Swartz: Explains the important difference between Cause and Effect and Non-Origination teaching.

PLEASE NOTE: In addition to all these texts mentioned, Shiningworld offers a wide range of other texts and articles, videos on all the teachings, and very importantly, thousands of pages of Q&A in our satsang section.  The Q&A operates with a search function using keywords to facilitate your search.  Make sure you avail yourself of this as it answers any questions or doubts you could have.  If none of this helps, feel free to write to us as we are happy to assist you with your self-inquiry. 

 The First Two Steps in Self Inquiry Are the Preparation for It:

1. Karma yoga:  Simply put, karma yoga meansdedicating every thought word, and deed to God/Isvara, the Field of Existence, in an attitude of gratitude and consecration, taking whatever results that come as a gift.  There are two stages to karma yoga and the first applies as preparation for self-inquiry, called secular karma yoga.

Secular Karma Yoga

Secular karma yoga is karma yoga with desire which can also work for worldly people not qualified for self-inquiry and not going for moksha. A secular karma yogi applies karma yoga to accomplish things in the world and get what they want or avoid what they don’t want. But assuming you have realized the futility of chasing objects in the world and are serious about self-inquiry, secular karma yoga is the preparation for entry-level inquirers to minimize the pressure of likes and dislikes.  

But the desire for objects/results (though they may be more elevated) is still present. The second stage of karma yoga, sacred Karma yoga without desire, is for more advanced inquirers—people who have realized that there is nothing to gain by action and are ready for or already engaged in self-inquiry.  See more below.

2. Meditation or Upsana yoga: This entails reflecting on your values, conducting a fearless moral inventory, understanding the qualifications required for self-inquiry, and starting to develop the ones that are lacking. It requires sattvic practices such as meditation to purify and prepare the mind for self-inquiry and cleaning up any lifestyle issues that are not in keeping with a peaceful mind.

The Three Stages of Self-Inquiry

Stage 1.  Sravanna – Listening and Hearing the Scriptures.

The first stage of self-inquiry is about hearing the teachings and requires that you start at the beginning, sign on to the logic and stick with it, along with diligently applying karma yoga.  As stated above, Vedanta is taught in a progressive and methodical way to answer all doubts that arise at each level of understanding. It is very important not to rush seeking instant answers (which is often what spiritual types are after) because that will not work. Ignorance is highly tenacious and resistant to removal, so patience and dedication are vital requirements, along with a realistic view that rejects the need for instant solutions to problems.

If you are too attached to your desires, your ideas, beliefs, and opinions acquired and developed from your exposure to multiple teachings, self-inquiry will not work.  It requires that you admit to yourself that you are the problem and that what you think you know has not worked thus far, so there must be something you don’t know the knowledge of which could make all the difference. If you are still chasing objects (such as a relationship/sex/money etc.), trying to get the world to give you what you think you lack, or even chasing a life-changing spiritual experience, Vedanta is not for you. In that case, it is best that you immerse yourself in worldly pursuits until you are thoroughly convinced the world cannot satisfy your desires and give you what you are seeking.

Very importantly, this stage requires that you have established the qualifications required for self-inquiry, so check if they are in place, strengthen the ones that are not, and track yourself on them on a moment-to-moment basis. Make and implement necessary lifestyle changes that you stick to. There is no way to skip this, self-inquiry is very simply not compatible with a mind that is not purified and prepared, in addition to practicing karma yoga.

Stage 2.  Manana. Reasoning, Contemplation. 

The second stage of self-inquiry requires thinking about what the scripture is saying, examining the unexamined logic of your own experience, and starting to apply the teachings to your life.  At this point, you look at your beliefs and opinions in the light of what the scripture says, not the other way around. If you are not dedicated to self-inquiry, have not developed the qualifications for self-inquiry, are not practicing karma yoga, or find yourself making excuses for the way you live because you are in denial about binding vasanas, you will not make progress.  Even if Self-realization does occur, it will not stick.  You will not actualize Self-knowledge unless you surrender to the teachings and address every aspect of your life.

Even though this stage is about contemplating the scriptures, it overlaps with the last and final stage, nididhysana, so karma yoga and guna management are vital. Karma yoga will eventually destroy the notion of ‘doership’ if properly understood and faithfully adhered to in every thought word and deed.  In the manana stage, it is meant to clear the mind of enough likes and dislikes until it becomes composed enough for sustained self-inquiry. The next stage of karma yoga only applies in the third stage of self-inquiry, nididhysana.  But before we get to that, there is no chance of making progress with self-inquiry without at least a basic understanding of the forces that condition the mind, the gunas. This is called triguna vibhava yoga, or jnana yoga (knowledge yoga) and it is covered in far more depth in James Swartz’ book, the Yoga of the Three Energies, a must-read for serious inquirers.

The Gunas

The forces that govern everything in the Field of Existence and that make up our conditioning are called the three gunas in Sanskrit. They are the psychological principles that run our lives. The word ‘guna’ means ‘rope’ because these three energies bind us to experience. The word also means ‘attributes’ as the energies of which the Field of Existence is made up play out very predictably. You may never have heard the term ‘guna’ before, but you do know these energies intimately because all three are always present and everyone is dealing with them in some order of influence every moment of every day.

Each guna has calculable and predictable mental and emotional attributes which govern our conditioning – i.e., if we understand what they are, we can manage them.  If we don’t, they manage us. Knowledge of these driving forces, and the ability to apply this knowledge, allows us to correct and improve our lives without manhandling the psyche. It is not about changing the world or changing the person.  It is about understanding both and learning to love ourselves unconditionally, which involves considering the main psychological and physical factors preventing us from living healthy and happy lives. 

The Three Energies in Brief:

1. Sattva, the energy of mind, intelligence, and revelation, qualities: peace, clarity, beauty, wisdom, spiritual arrogance.

2. Tamas, the energy of matter, also of ignorance, qualities: dullness, denial, sloth, gluttony, addiction, endurance, sleep.

3. Rajas the energy of action and projection, qualities: desire, passion, agitation, neurosis.

Guna management is essential for managing thoughts and feelings that dominate the mind. Guna yoga is also understanding the Creator and ordainer of the Field (Isvara or ‘God’), and the identity between you as an individual and the Field, why they are the same, and what is different. Without this understanding it is impossible to negate the egoic doer and all its fear/desire programs, so you will not progress to the last and final stage of inquiry. Many people do realize the Self at this stage, but that is really where the ‘work’ of self-inquiry begins. To progress to the final stage requires full and complete faith in and compliance with the scripture – it alone is the boss of your life, not the jiva, and it requires the final stage of karma yoga, Self-actualization. In the next stage, Sacred Karma Yoga applies.

Stage 3. Nididhysana, Self-Actualization

Self-realization is not Self-actualization, which is the final “stage”. Self-actualization is not actually a stage because all stages are objects known to the Self but ‘getting there’ comes only after all the previous stages mentioned so far are completed. And the process of Self-actualization, nididhysana, is also, the hardest. It usually takes the longest. The knowledge that you are the Self has obtained, but complete freedom from the personal program has not; there are still some binding mental/emotional patterns to purify. For most people who have realized the Self but not actualized it, this stage in a way is like ‘requalifying’ – re-examining qualifications and strengthening those that are still weak. It requires the final negation of the idea of yourself as an individual, a jiva. Up to now, karma yoga went from relinquishing results of actions to the Field and taking given results as a gift, to the next level, renunciation of the idea of doership, and desire. 

Sacred Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga without Desire

In the last stage of self-inquiry, karma yoga becomes a different kind of mind management, karma yoga without desire, or Sacred karma yoga. It is for more advanced inquirers.  It is the transformation of our remaining binding mental/emotional conditioning into devotion to the Self. At this stage, you have given up needing anything. You are not after God’s ‘stuff’.  You are after God, period. It’s not that you no longer have desires, but all desire is not contrary to dharma and directed to the Self. Self-actualization is managing the mind’s involuntary, habitual thoughts and feeling patterns, which are bedrock duality and often survive Self-realization.  

These patterns can still hijack the mind without a moment’s notice, denying it access to the Self in the form of Self-knowledge, so you are still bound to the egoic program.  There is nothing inherently wrong with involuntary thoughts, but they tend to immediately morph into actions that are liable to create unwanted karma in the form of obscuring thoughts and emotions. Therefore, guna/mind management continues. Until this stage is complete, Self-actualization has not taken place and discrimination can be lost, if not permanently, at least temporarily. You are not free because limiting thoughts/feelings like fear, smallness, need, shame, confusion, low self-esteem, etc., can still strike, destroying peace of mind.

Though all three stages of self-inquiry must be completed if moksa is your main motivation, most inquirers will cycle through each stage as the knowledge assimilates. Very often, after years, sometimes even decades, an inquirer in the last stage of self-inquiry, the nididhysana stage, must go back to the beginning to requalify because something is holding them back. Usually, it is related to unconscious jiva patterns, some qualification that is still missing, or some part of the teaching was not fully assimilated.  To this end, we have a goldmine of material freely available on the Shiningworld website, and we offer our guidance and help through email, zoom, or skype.

The Final Renunciation

For Self-actualization to take place, the final and most subtle renunciation must occur.  It is renouncing the idea of seeking liberation because you ARE free and always have been. As the Self, you have never been bound.  This is the toughest stage because if there are still some binding mental/emotional patterns, it can prevent the inquirer from attaining actualization. It is not a case of what is missing, but what is still there: the idea that the doer still needs to ‘do’ something to perfect the jiva. Or there remains a very subtle thought that there is still some amazing experience that must take place to prove you are the Self.

But there is no proof because you are the proof. No experience can prove that. There comes a time when practicing the knowledge no longer works its magic because it’s time to move beyond it.  You are no longer a seeker but a finder, and you need to answer the question:  are you doing the knowledge or are you the knowledge?  Vedanta is not about accumulating or perfecting Self-knowledge, or any practice as such, because, for the Self, even Self-knowledge is an object known to you. And freedom is not about perfecting the jiva, it is freedom from and for it. The jiva is what it is, and it is as good as non-existent if Self-knowledge is firm.

Freedom From the Knower of Knowledge

Strangely, for many, the toughest part of self-inquiry is giving up being an inquirer (which is just another comforting identity) and throwing Vedanta away.  It is a means to an end, and when it has served its intended purpose, you no longer need it. Vedanta as a means of knowledge is meant to remove ignorance, that is all. When you are the knowledge, the means must disappear.  If the knowledge remains you have the knowledge, but you also still have ignorance. Freedom is the absence of ignorance not the gaining of knowledge.  It is freedom from the knower of knowledge. It is BEING the knowing not knowing the knower. Existence shining as Awareness. No maintenance is required. Hanging on to the knowledge is hanging on to the jiva, keeping the doer, seeker, knower, and ignorance alive. So, at this stage, you must cut the lifeline and live as the Self, no buts. From here on there are no rules for you or things you should or should not be doing, applying, or inquiring into. There is no nididhysana for the Self.  How can there be? You are the Self, period. You follow dharma without default, but the jiva is free to be what it is, without censure. 

However, and this is important, there is fine print to this. If there are still binding vasanas for an inquirer who prematurely claims they are the Self, and thus believes that nididhysana does not apply to them, Self-actualization cannot take place. Unfortunately, this is quite common, and the result is either the Advaita Shuffle or, enlightenment sickness, which is when the ego co-opts the knowledge.

To be fully Self-actualized means:

(1) That you have fully discriminated the Self (Consciousness/Awareness) from the objects appearing in you (all objects, meaning all gross objects as well as one’s conditioning, thoughts, and feelings—all experience), and do so spontaneously, 24/7. You are not the Self and the jiva or person. You are the Self, period.

(2) Self-knowledge has (a) rendered the binding desiresnon-binding and (b) negated your sense of doership, completely. In other words, the ego program is understood and fully negated.  The individual still exists with its inborn nature and operates in the world, but its program is like a burnt rope – it no longer has the power to bind. It is as good as non-existent and rests in the fullness of the Self.  The world neither attracts nor repels it. There is nothing left to identify with other than the Self.

Therefore, once Self-knowledge is permanent, you never think of yourself as a person again, your primary identity is fully established as the Self.  And you are totally fine with the apparent person as they are and their role in the world. All desires from here will be not opposed to dharma, they are preferences, nothing more. You are fine with and fine without. Karma yoga is no longer a practice as such, it is just common-sense knowledge. It can be said that this stage never really ends even when Self-actualization obtains because though desires are no longer binding, the person is still a constantly changing entity due to the gunas because it lives in the Field, which is also always constantly changing. Thus, though the mind may no longer condition to the gunas, mind management continues but here Self-knowledge works spontaneously and instantly to nullify any effects because there is no identification with the person and the field of experience.

Though there are no rules for a Self-actualized person because they are free of all limitations, nonetheless, one automatically follows dharma because you still honor the natural laws that run the Field of Existence.  Non-injury in thought word and deed is the highest priority. You know there is nothing to gain or lose in the world and, it is all you. Your lifestyle will be fully in accordance with Self-knowledge in every respect.

An Enlightened Lifestyle

It is not necessary to complete all the stages of self-inquiry to create an enlightened lifestyle, but you will not progress with self-inquiry without one.  Spiritual growth requires an Enlightened Lifestyle and since a value for this is not available in materialistic societies, you must create a simple peaceful lifestyle yourself.  A clear understanding of the Field of Existence brings the individual into a relationship with the whole that creates a satisfied, contented mind.  Without this connection, we cannot express our God-given positive qualities.  A happy life is a life in harmony with the whole.

I define an unenlightened lifestyle as a neurotic, emotional, dissatisfied, self-indulgent, messy, desire-based, stress-filled life. I define an enlightened lifestyle as a simple, orderly, considerate, content, emotionally balanced, knowledge-based, intelligent, and relatively stress-free life. Everyone wants that, right?  Well, very few people have that. Why?

A commitment to self-inquiry as explained above, with the help of a qualified teacher and the necessary qualifications present will answer all questions and remove ignorance, and therefore, end our existential suffering. But there is not a one–size-fits-all formula for a peaceful life.  While we are all one in the Self, the way we appear as individuals expresses differently in everyone.  Ignorance is universal, but our personal ignorance is unique to us; to remove this involves understanding both what drives us personally and the impersonal factors behind our life story (Isvara/the gunas/unconscious drives or Causal body), but it is not about our life story. The truth is always impersonal and cannot be adapted to suit us, assuming we want freedom from limitation more than anything else.

Therein lies the ‘work’ of self-inquiry. Om, Sundari

Contributed by Ben

When we examine all our needs and wants, we arrive at a very simple conclusion. Through all our activity and busyness of life, what we are really looking for is peace and happiness. We want it here and now, we want it to be always present and without limits, whatever the circumstances, situations, events or experiences. Every human being without exception, regardless of age, gender, race, culture, religion or nationality, wants peace and happiness, a satisfied life. To put it another way, we all want freedom from suffering. Even those who perform negative and harmful actions towards themselves or towards others, do so because they think that they will find peace and happiness that way! They don’t realise that such actions are counter-productive.

Not only do we want peace and happiness for ourselves, we want it for others too: those near and dear and for all others and all creatures. However, we need to attend to ourselves first because of a very simple and obvious principle: we cannot give or share what we do not have. So the enquiry is reduced to the individual, from a ‘we’ to an ‘I’: “What am I looking for?” In this article, the first person singular “I” will be used.

The fact that I want peace and happiness means that I do not have it at this moment. If I did, I would not be looking for it. How do I currently seek for it? By getting objects. I think that by getting objects, I will become peaceful and happy. This is what I have done from childhood and I continue with the same approach right throughout life. The objects I seek change as I change, but the seeking for objects persists. I seek objects to find security, pleasure or to become a better person, thus hoping to find peace and happiness in my life.

What are ‘objects’? They are ‘things’ or ‘phenomena’ or ‘aggregates’ or ‘structures’, elements put together and held together. Objects can be tangible and gross or intangible and subtle. Tangible ones are like my physical body, money, property, investments, jewellery, personal items, bullion, etc. Intangible ones are like my mind, thoughts and emotions, pleasure, sensations, success, fame, family and relationships, subjective experiences and daily encounters, security, situations, amazing experiences, transcendental experiences, the unconscious, etc. They are all objects.

Seeking and dealing with objects to find peace and happiness has a particular problem: objects are temporary and keep changing. In other words, they are unreliable and can even be disappointing and counterproductive. Despite my best efforts, I cannot control them. What pleases me today may not please me tomorrow. What was pleasurable once can become painful later…. think romance and divorce! I have to guard what I get and keep them safe because they can be lost and they do get lost! Like everything else in life, they are subject to entropy! Sometimes after working so hard to get them, I find they are not exactly what I wanted or I find them hollow. Something is missing. What pleases one person may not please another. Besides, I may not get the object I want and so I go into frustration, anger or depression. The reason I get depressed is very simple: I am not getting what I want. Don’t our life experiences confirm these facts?

In other words, objects in themselves cannot give peace and happiness because it is not in them to do so. Yet, even though I know this from hard and painful experience, I still keep pursuing objects because I do not know what else to do! This is how I have been conditioned, how I think and act, and society and advertising only reinforce this conditioning: “Buy this, and you will be happy!” “Use this and you will get what you want!” “You are missing out if you don’t have this!” Advertisements can be so bewitching and enticing and so cleverly pull at the heart strings. End result, I pursue objects.

What I do not understand is the mental mechanism or dynamics pertaining to desire, getting objects and what happens after:

• First, I must have the thought of the object, ie. I must know it. Through perception and experience, I get to know an object, ie. the thought of it, an imprint of the object arises in my mind. This is how we gain knowledge of any object. When not directly needed, that thought is archived in my memory and can be retrieved as needed. Then I can act on it. Conversely, when I do not know an object, I will not have the thought of it in my mind.
• I cannot desire what I do not know; I can desire only what I do know, ie have a thought of.
• From whatever cause, when the thought of an object arises in my mind, it must please me for me to desire the object. If it displeases me, I will drop the thought and not pursue the object.
• When I am pleased with the thought and desire the object, my mind gets agitated. The degree of agitation depends on the intensity of the desire. Something I do not really care much about, raises very little agitation. But if I really desire something very strongly, then the agitation will be equally strong.
• This agitation drives me to seek the object and I cannot rest until I get it. (The popular phrase is: “I go nuts!”) This is how cravings arise.
• When I get the object, the agitation ceases and the thought of the object drops away from my mind because I now have the object with me; there is no more need for the thought.
• With the agitation gone, my mind becomes quiet and restful.
• I feel peaceful and happy and I conclude …and it appears to be true… that the peace and happiness came because I got the object. WRONG CONCLUSION! (Sorry!!)

What really happens is that when the agitation ceases and the mind is quiet and rested, peace and happiness flood my mind. Where did it come from? This peace and happiness comes from me. It is my nature. When my mind is quiet, my nature of peace and happiness is easily recognised and experienced. But because I am ignorant of my true nature, I think the object gave it to me. Not at all! Peace and happiness arises from me because it is my nature.What is the proof for this surprising claim even though it seems contrary to everything we have so far known?

• Everyone has had experiences, even if episodic and brief, where they felt some peace and happiness even without objects… just simply peaceful and happy for no obvious reason.
• Also, the fact that I seek peace and happiness means that I must have experienced and must have known it. I cannot desire what I do not know. As stated above, for me to desire something, I must have the thought of it and the thought of it occurs in my mind because I have experienced and known it. So since every human being without exception (that includes me) desires peace and happiness, we must have known it.
• Just that I did not realise that the peace and happiness I experienced is my own nature. Ignorance is the factor that prevents me from recognising this reality and so I seek it in objects. Because of ignorance, I overlook my own nature, I project peace and happiness on to objects, associate it with objects and therefore pursue objects. All the time I am unaware of where peace and happiness really arises from – myself, my nature. What an unfortunate and painful mistake and how ironic! What I am really looking for is here present all the time!
• More proof….. I cannot accept pain, unpleasantness and suffering. I seek freedom from these. Either I quickly withdraw myself from these experiences or I try to actively eliminate them and their source. This is normal and usual human behaviour. However, when I experience peace and happiness, I do not seek to withdraw from it nor seek to eliminate it. I want it to remain all the time. That is because peace and happiness is my nature, what I am and not something I have to get. Whereas pain and suffering are not part of my nature. They are foreign to me and unpleasant and so I do not want them. So even my desire to avoid suffering, proves that my nature is peace and happiness.
• To summarise, I always want peace and happiness whether I move towards desirable objects or shun away from undesirable ones. Peace and happiness is my nature.

When I know this reality about myself, I can be happy and peaceful under any circumstance. Life is constantly changing and always in flux. We experience duality constantly: pleasure alternating with pain, success and failure, gain and loss, pleasant and unpleasant, beginnings and endings, birth and death, etc. These experiences are inevitable in life. To hope for and want only the good things in life, is a sure recipe for disappointment, suffering and misery. When I am ignorant of my nature, I suffer; the roller coaster ride up and down is highly unpleasant in the long run. When experienced to extremes, it becomes a psychological problem called Bipolar Disorder.

But when I ground myself on the foundation of the peace and happiness that I am, ie. on my nature, then I can handle these swings without being overcome by them, not getting high with the pleasant nor low with the unpleasant. My mind will be balanced and equanimous with either… not because of the objects and experiences, circumstances and situations, all of which keep changing… but because I know I am the source of my peace and happiness.

In addition, I will be able to handle all objects, both tangible and intangible, freely and wisely without developing any dependence on them. Objects have their place. I realise objects are needed for survival, sustenance, comfort or pleasure but not for happiness and peace. This latter is my nature. With such an attitude, I am free, unbound, liberated and peaceful.

When I am at peace with myself, I will be at peace with others. When I know this truth about myself, I can help others find the peace and happiness they are. I can share insights and experiences and ways of living which are conducive to a peaceful, happy and satisfying life. Individuals grouped together make a society, the ‘we’. When individuals in society are peaceful and happy, society will be peaceful and happy. But when ignorance of the reality of ourselves predominates, there is trouble. Look at the world today. So it all begins with the individual, each individual, who knows what he / she is looking for and knows where to find it.

This knowledge or realisation about myself leads to peace and happiness and a satisfying life, here and now. Isn’t this what I am / we are looking for?

What is Vedanta?

That’s a question I get asked a lot.

The answer I give generally depends on who is asking the question. For the more general crowd, I often say that Vedanta is the philosophical basis of Hinduism. That’s an answer that most people can accept, even if it’s not strictly accurate.

First of all, Vedanta isn’t a philosophy. A philosophy is something cooked up by a person or group of people. It’s limited by nature; a worldview or set of ideas and concepts filtered through an individual’s personal assumptions and biases; and always at odds with competing philosophies.

Vedanta isn’t the product of any one person or group of people. It’s also much more than a philosophy. It’s what is known in Sanskrit as a pramana. A pramana is a means of knowledge. In this case, the knowledge in question is the king of all knowledge: Self-knowledge.

Why, you might wonder, would anyone need a means of self-knowledge? After all, most people assume they already know who they are. This guy is Mike, and that woman is Beverly. One is an accountant who drives a BMW and the other a school teacher who rides a motorcycle. One likes pizza and the other likes gin.

But consider something for a moment. What if everything you’ve ever thought or assumed to be true about yourself was actually nothing more than that — just a thought and assumption?

What if the person you’ve always considered yourself to be was nothing more than a concept in your head? And what if this concept was actually the source of all your suffering and unhappiness in life?

A Question of Identity

What sets human beings apart from other creatures is our ability to self-reflect.

While animals are intelligent, sentient, and have a rudimentary intellect, we humans are unique in that we have an enhanced sense of ego; a sense of who we think we are and who we think we should be. This has enabled us to become the dominant species on the planet; to build and maintain civilisations, and to discover, explore, and innovate.

It’s also, however, the root of our greatest bondage. According to Vedanta, the source of our suffering is misidentifying with a limited and erroneous sense of self. As the late, great Vedanta teacher Swami Dayananda said:

“It is the glory of man that he is conscious of himself. However, the self he is aware of is not a complete, adequate self. It is, unfortunately, a wanting, inadequate self.”

The problem with self-awareness is a simple one: the ‘self’ we are aware of may not be acceptable to us. In fact, it’s likely to be a highly unsatisfactory self. If we assume ourselves to be our body, mind, emotions or ego, we inevitably experience a sense of limitation, for all these components are by their very nature limited.

This pseudo-self, which, upon investigation, is simply a bundle of unquestioned assumptions, masks our true nature.

Vedanta tells us that we’re far more than we ever dared imagine — that we are already whole and complete — and that our sense of limitation comes from identifying with what we are not.

Perhaps the oldest form of psychology on the planet, Vedanta is a science of consciousness that uses impeccable logic to help us understand the nature of the self, consciousness, and reality itself. Universal in scope, it deals with the questions mankind has wrestled with since the very dawn of time:

Who am I?
What am I?
Where did the universe come from?
What is the purpose of life?

Again, Vedanta is not a philosophy. It’s not attributable to any one person or group of people. It’s a body of knowledge which has been revealed over time, carefully refined, and guarded for millennia.

It’s not a religion, either. Although it deals with theological topics, it works without any of the religious trappings. As such, it’s not necessary to have an affilitation with Hinduism or any other religion.

All that’s required is an open and questioning mind.

The End of Knowledge

The word Vedanta is derived from the words Veda and anta, which together mean ‘the end of knowledge’.

Vedanta is based upon the teaching of the ancient Indian Vedas, which form the basis of Sanatana Dharma (or what we call ‘Hinduism’). These texts, of which there are four, date back thousands of years and are said to be “revealed knowledge”. In other words, they are not the product of the human mind, but were heard by the ancient rishis (seers) in deep meditation and passed down through countless generations in the form of Sanskrit mantras, in a way that made the teaching impervious to change and distortion.

The Vedas can be divided into two portions.

The first and most voluminous section of each Veda is called the karma kanda. This deals with the fulfilment of one’s earthly goals and desires. It prescribes rituals and actions to aid in every aspect of worldly life. You might say that the karma kanda of the Veda deals with the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; the basics of worldly living.

The second section, the jnana kanda, takes the form of the Upanishads. The word ‘Upanishad’ means ‘sitting at the foot of’; in this case, a teacher of Vedantic knowledge. This knowledge focuses not on worldly endeavour, but spiritual attainment in the form of Self-realisation and liberation.

Taking the form of dialogues and poetic stories, the Upanishads explore questions of existence, reality, and the nature of the self. There are over two hundred known Upanishads, of which ten are considered principal Upanishads.

Vedanta is a systematic unfoldment of the teachings of the Upanishads. It deals with the question of self-identity and liberation from worldly suffering.

Because it distils the teachings of the Upanishads, the end section of each Veda, it is called Vedanta (the end of the Vedas). Another understanding of the term Vedanta (“the end of knowledge”), is that it ends all further search for knowledge, because the subject matter of Vedanta is Self Knowledge, raja vidya (‘the king of knowledge’); knowing which nothing remains to be known or attained.

The Triple Canon

To refine and clarify the teachings of the Upanishads, other literature was created to elaborate upon the teachings and resolve any seeming contradictions.

In Vedanta, the most important of these are the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. Along with the Upanishads, they form what is called ‘the triple canon of Vedanta’.

The Brahma Sutras, attributed to Badarayana, are a series of aphorisms that expound and clarify the teachings of the Upanishads in an involved and rigorous fashion.

The Bhagavad Gita is a book that forms part of Vyasa’s great Mahabharata epic and is one of the best-known pieces of Indian literature. Set upon a battlefield on the eve of a great battle, it takes the form of a dialogue between the noble warrior Arjuna and his charioteer and teacher, Krishna, who is an avatar, or representation of the Divine.

Through Krishna’s teaching, the text explores the topics of action and duty, meditation, devotion, understanding the nature of the Self, and attaining liberation and enlightenment. The Gita is an important text that beautifully lays out the core tenets of Vedanta in a remarkably poetic yet practical fashion.

The Influence of Shankara

One of the most important contributors to Vedanta was the 8th century visionary Adi Shankara, or Shankaracharya (acharya means ‘great teacher’ in Sanskrit).

Shankara travelled across India, established schools, engaged in public debates and, through his extensive commentaries and a voluminous body of work, consolidated the teaching into what it is today.

In Shankara’s time, what we think of as Hinduism (the term ‘Hinduism’ was actually created by Western anthropologists referring to what is better known as ‘Sanatana Dharma’), was a disparate assortment of different traditions, with their basis in the Vedas. Corruption was notably rife in the Brahmin, or priest caste, and the message of the Vedas distorted.

In his short life, Shankara reformed and unified Sanatana Dharma, which was at the time rapidly being supplanted by Buddhism, itself an offshoot of the Vedas.

With his razor-sharp intellect, Shankara excelled at the public philosophical debates of the time. The losers of these debates had to accept the position of the winner or tuck their tails between their legs and leave town.

A vocal critic of elements of Buddhist doctrine, Shankara would shoot down Buddhist scholars left, right, and centre at these public debates. The subsequent decline of Buddhism in India is often attributed to Shankara, as well as the subsequent revival and renaissance in Sanatana Dharma.

Having said that, some suggest that elements of Buddhist philosophy helped shape Shankara’s reformation of what some call Advaita Vedanta. The word ‘advaita’ means ‘not-two’ and refers to the nondual nature of reality as revealed by the Upanishads.

Shankara’s commentaries on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutras are considered landmark works and helped consolidate the teaching into a clear and fully realised vision.

In the centuries since Shankara’s time, some offshoots of Vedanta have sprung up, such as the Dvaitaand Vashishtadvaita schools, which present a more dualistic interpretation of the Upanishads. Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta remains the oldest, most influential, and for many the definitive presentation of Vedanta.

A Complete Teaching

Vedanta is a taught in a structured way. The teaching progresses through a specific sequence of logic, leading the student to not only understand but eventually integrate and fully realise the essence of the teaching.

The fruit of the teaching is a completely different understanding of yourself and life; one that forever changes your relationship to the world of objects.

Instead of relying on external objects, such as people, situations, and attainments to bring fleeting moments of happiness, you discover a limitless well of happiness and wholeness within your own self.

This is called moksha, or liberation. Some people call it enlightenment. I just call it freedom. In a sense, Vedanta is a roadmap to freedom.

Vedanta is traditionally only taught to those who are ready to hear the teaching. There’s little point dipping in and out, reading occasional books and attending the odd lecture.

One must first prepare the mind to be able to grasp and assimilate the teaching; a teaching that may at first seem radical and counterintuitive, but which, upon reflection, makes perfect sense.

Vedanta requires a clear and open mind. You must be willing to let go of everything you think you already know and carefully consider the teaching as unfolded by a skilled Vedanta teacher.

In that sense, Vedanta is not for everyone, for it does require a commitment of time and effort. Until quite recently, Vedanta was something of a closed system, only taught in India by qualified teachers and delivered in Sanskrit. Whereas yoga and Buddhism have easily exported to the West over the past century or so, Vedanta’s influence has been more subtle.

While few in the general public will have ever heard the term ‘Vedanta’, its influence is nonetheless pervasive. The core concepts of Vedanta have profoundly influenced and inspired a great many other teachings, including Buddhism, and in the West, the theosophical movement and its new age offshoots, the new thought movement, and many Western thinkers and authors.

In contemporary spirituality, the ‘non-duality’ scene (which includes teachers such as Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, and Mooji), is essentially a repackaging of the core concepts of Vedanta. These advaita (or neo advaita) teachers borrow the fundamental elements of Vedanta. Their teachings have some value, but it is limited, because they fail to present the full picture.

Vedanta is a system. It works by following the teaching sequentially from beginning to end. There’s no point jumping ahead until the logic of each stage has first been understood and accepted.

This approach doesn’t appeal to everyone. Many Western spiritual seekers prefer a more rebellious, ‘follow your own vibes’ approach. They believe that enlightenment isn’t something that can be taught; that words are insufficient, and the truth can only come from within. For them, sitting down and listening to someone teaching from centuries old texts doesn’t seem very punk-ass.

This is, nevertheless, the way the teaching works — and it does work!

The problem with following your own way and only going with what ‘resonates’ with you, is that mortal enemy of the discriminating mind — confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is one of the greatest obstacles to Self-knowledge. Owing to this hard-wired tendency of the mind, we only seek out or pay attention to what we already believe and agree with. So rather than learning, we spend our lives simply reinforcing our ignorance. And this ignorance, Vedanta points out, is at the very core of our suffering.

This doesn’t, however, mean that Vedanta is about mindlessly adopting a new worldview, doctrine, or set of beliefs.

As a student, you’re not expected to blindly accept what you’re being taught. At each stage, you carefully reflect and consider the teaching to prove its validity for yourself. You’re meant to question it, to work through doubts, and consider it from all angles.

Experience and Knowledge

Eventually, most self-honest spiritual seekers hit a dead-end. They get to a point where they realise that, even after decades of meditation, yoga, and perhaps occasional samadhis and epiphanies, they still haven’t changed one little bit. Their spiritual experiences come and go, but their experience of themselves and life — and their existential suffering — hasn’t changed much at all.

It take a mature seeker to admit that spiritual experiences, however blissful and wondrous they might be, come and go and rarely create lasting change. They don’t end the seeking. If anything, they reinforce the seeking, and thereby the ego, because the moment you have a taste of bliss and it dries up, you immediately crave more.

As long as you’re psychologically dependent on any external factor for your happiness, you remain trapped in the wheel of samsara — a self-perpetuating cycle of seeking, craving, and dissatisfaction.

Experience, which is the result of action, can’t create lasting change. It can’t do this because, like anything perceptible, it is time-bound. That’s why Vedanta says that trying to manipulate objects and experiences (and this includes manipulating the mind) can’t lead to lasting freedom.

What does lead to lasting freedom, however, is knowledge.

Vedanta contends that our suffering — the sense of being a lacking, limited, person who must continually chase after objects and experiences in order to be happy and whole — is based on ignorance of our nature.

The only cure for ignorance is knowledge. Knowledge destroys ignorance as rapidly as a light destroys darkness.

Vedanta is known as jnana yoga, the yoga of Self-knowledge. 

It requires a mature mind. It doesn’t negate meditation and yoga. In fact, meditation and yoga are seen as necessary practices (sadhanas) to prepare the mind to receive the teaching. These practices are viewed not as ends in themselves, but as necessary means for cultivating a pure and qualified mind.

There’s a reason that of the many hundreds of thousands of seekers in the world, only a few every ‘get’ enlightened. This is not down to the capricious hand of fate. It’s because only those few have done the necessary groundwork to cultivate an appropriately calm, discriminating, dispassionate, and clear mind. That’s the primary qualification for Vedanta.

If you aren’t yet ‘qualified’, however, you needn’t worry. Vedanta offers karma yoga, upasana yoga and meditation as means of managing the mind and neutralising our entrenched desires and aversions, which over a lifetime have conspired to create worlds of suffering for us.

A Nondual Reality

We live in a world of apparent duality; of subject and object; of me, you, and the world.

Nevertheless, the essential teaching of Vedanta is that, in spite of appearance, reality is actually non-dual. All the seemingly separate beings and constituent parts of this duality are, in fact, expressions of — and appearances in — the same universal consciousness (Brahman; the Self).

Furthermore, we are not separate from this consciousness. In fact, it is the essence of what we are. Consider dreaming and the dreamworld. When you’re asleep, an entire universe of form, places, objects, and people appears before you, and you identify with one particular portion of this. Everything in the dream, however, is but an expression of — and an appearance in — the dreaming consciousness. It has no existence or reality outside of consciousness.

Everything you experience — the world of objects, forms and experiences — appears within consciousness.

It’s actually impossible to experience anything outside of consciousness. Take a moment to consider this. In any given moment, your senses are relaying all kinds of data. Objects are perceived outside of you:  walls, furniture, houses, trees, people, mountains, and clouds.

But WHERE are you actually experiencing these objects? It might seem that you are experiencing them outside of yourself. But actually, the senses are merely relaying signals, enabling you to experience representations of these objects in your mind; in your own consciousness.

You can’t experience anything outside of consciousness.  Consciousness is the very ground of your existence; and the basis of your reality.  The content of your consciousness is ever-changing, but consciousness itself remains changeless and unlimited.

Consciousness, pure awareness, is the eternal factor that can never be negated; the one thing that can never be taken from you.

It takes time to fully grasp and integrate this radically different understanding of reality. Yet the teachings of Vedanta prove, in numerous ways and with impeccable logic, that all you ever experience — and all you ultimately ever are — is actually consciousness.

This, in time, dissolves your identification with the limited mind-body-ego entity you assumed yourself to be; which is but a superimposition in consciousness and literally the source of all your troubles.

You discover a far more expansive identity as awareness, and the result is freedom from the suffering of samsara. The Vedas proclaim this freedom, moksha, to be the highest goal of human life.

In actuality, there’s nothing particularly mystical or magical about enlightenment. It’s simply a sense of freedom from limitation, freedom from suffering, brought about by knowledge of your self and reality as it actually is.

In a world where knowledge is power, the ultimate knowledge — Self Knowledge — is nothing less than liberation.

By Christian Leeby / Edited by James Swartz

Follow this train of thought with a totally open mind. In the end you’ll know what the intention is, but for now it’s better not to know. What I’m saying is totally obvious. I’m not trying to trick you or show you something you don’t already know. So if you think “so what?” while you read this, that’s perfect. There’s nothing hidden or elusive here.

What is the most familiar experience to you? Shouldn’t that be easy to answer? I know it’s a rather vague question, but still, doesn’t it seem like you should easily know what it is? Think about it. It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds but it may take a long time because the answer is soooo obvious that most people don’t get it.

When you experience something all of the time and it never ever changes it’s almost impossible to notice, like gravity. Gravity is pushing strongly on your body all of the time but you never notice it…because it’s always there. What’s interesting about the most familiar experience to you is that it is also a constant like gravity, but you can know it. Although it never ever changes, you can be aware of it. So what is it?

The most familiar experience to you is that you exist. Every single thing you experience and know happens within the context of your existence. This is super obvious, right? But it doesn’t come to mind because it’s in the background and we don’t think about it or appreciate it for what it is because…well…because it is always there. As you think about the fact that you exist right now, you immediately ‘feel’ or ‘sense’ or ‘experience’ or ‘know’ your existence in some way, don’t you?

How do you know you exist? Well, you just know it, that’s all. It’s not because you see your existence, or hear, feel, or think it…or for any other reason. No other source of information is required. That you exist is the most important knowledge that every person has. It is obvious, fundamental, and ongoing. And you know it simply because you know it. Nothing new here; I’m just pointing out what you already know, all of the time.

There is one more very important fact about you that you need to consider. That you exist is clear but what is the nature of your existence? What exactly is existence? Existence is awareness. These two words mean exactly the same thing. The most familiar experience to you is that you are aware. Existence, awareness, has to be there or you don’t experience or know anything. Or you could say that existence or awareness has to be there, or you aren’t there. Obvious, isn’t it?

Some people in the spiritual world…most, in fact…seem to think that awareness is something special, something incredible, something somewhere else, something to be discovered or realized or experienced in some mystical way. I am pointing out how completely normal and obvious awareness is to you.

It is one thing to understand that you are existence/awareness but it is another to know what it means to be what you are. This will take a bit more time if you want to do it on your own but if you listen to what I have to say, it will not take very long at all. What is means is that you are always full, whole and complete. This is what we mean by bliss. It means you are always satisfied with yourself. You will, of course argue with me on this topic because your experience does not warrant that conclusion. Sometimes you feel positively dissatisfied. Before you stop listening consider this: why are you not satisfied with dissatisfaction? The answer is because you are not focused on your existence awareness, your self. You don’t feel satisfied because you just got what you want or avoided what you didn’t want…you feel satisfied because you are at one with you.

There is something that obstructs your appreciation of yourself…your fears and desires! If you can lay them to rest you can be satisfied all the time. There are several solutions to this problem…karma yoga, for example, but the quickest one, if you are qualified, is self inquiry. Apply the truth about your self…the knowledge I am whole and complete ever-existent actionless awareness… whenever a gratuitous fear or desire arises and you will eventually knock them out. Every time you do it you will feel very satisfied because you are standing as you are, standing as existence awareness, not as your silly desires and fears want you to think you are…a small inadequate incomplete little wimp.

It’s like being in school and told by the teacher to erase the chalkboard of your past. When you take self-inquiry to your mind you are erasing the old stuff. Take a few swipes with the eraser and you’ll see an immediate difference, which is a wonderful thing with Vedanta. However, some of that chalk has been on there for a long time and needs many wipes and a bit of elbow grease. If you doubt that the eraser will work, it won’t work because you’re not using it. Use it consistently and absolutely for sure, it will eventually work. That’s self-inquiry.

Another terribly important point about enlightenment is to know that the idea that when you realize yourself you will discover something new is a complete lie. You will not discover or experience anything new. It will not fix your karma. If you’re constantly looking for something new…a special kind of experience…then you are just feeding your self ignorance. In fact, when you realize the self, what happens is that you see that the most obvious and familiar experience to you – your existence/awareness – is what you’ve been looking for. That’s why it’s not a big deal and it is not an experience.

Our thoughts, feelings, and body are obvious to us. We all have them and we all know that they are separate from us. Our existence/awareness is super obvious to us now, but nobody ever told us that existence/awareness different from them. So we assumed that our obvious sense of existence/awareness comes from the body. It doesn’t. There’s your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your ego, and then, standing quite alone…your awareness/existence. Although they are one because reality is non-dual, your body, thoughts feelings and ego are different from you, existence. They are objects…like trees and mountains. You, existence/awareness are what witnesses them. Awareness, the witness, is what you actually are.

Knowing this won’t necessarily enlighten you, though it certainly could. But it is very important because it will keep your mind from getting all magical and spiritual about this mysterious awareness that everyone in the non-dual world is going on about. Even if you don’t fully grasp it, be confident that the awareness you are thinking about is nothing more than that which is the most familiar experience to you – your existence.

It really is that simple.

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The Subtle and Causal Bodies: David and Goliath

This picture is unremarkable: two horizontal lines of different lengths, with fins appended, pointing in different directions. The bottom line is obviously shorter than the other one above it. That is what we all see, and we naturally believe what we see. If you have already encountered this image, however, you recognize it as the famous Muller-Lyer illusion. As you can easily confirm by measuring them with a ruler, the horizontal lines are in fact identical in length.

Now that you have measured the lines, you – your System 2 (Subtle Body, or apparent person), the conscious being you call “I” – have a new belief: you know that the lines are equally long. If asked about the length, you will say what you know. But you will see the top line as longer. You have chosen to believe the measurement, but you cannot prevent System 1 (Causal Body) doing its thing. You cannot decide to see the lines as equal, although you know they are. To resist the illusion, there is only one thing you can do: you can learn to mistrust your impressions of the length of lines when fins are attached to them.

To implement that rule, you must be able to recognize the illusory pattern and recall what you know about it. If you can do this, you will never again be fooled by the Muller-Lyer illusion.

But you will still see one line as longer than the other!

What is System 1 and System 2?

The terms “System 1” and “System 2” have evolved in modern psychology as documented by the experimental psychologist and Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman. He describes these systems and many other fascinating insights very beautifully in his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” His book is well worth reading because of its relevance to self-inquiry; both James and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The explanation above is a quote from Kahneman’s book, although I have added the Vedantic terms in parenthesis. From a Vedanta perspective, System 1 is a code term to describe the macrocosmic Causal Body or the Unconscious, meaning Isvara. The Causal Body contains the ‘personal’ or microcosmic Causal Body (often referred to as the subconscious mind). System 2 describes the Subtle Body, or the conscious mind.

The value of Daniel Kahneman’s research is that it provides us with a language which is current, accurate….and more in tune with Western thinking. Unbeknown to him, this language is true to Vedanta and as such, offers an additional and very useful tool in our self-inquiry “tool-kit”. This further enables us to apply the understanding of the environment: the individual (jiva/System 2) its relationship to the macrocosmic mind (Isvara) and pure awareness.

The real meaning of the exercise above, either for the seeker of liberation (moksha) or the average person (samsari) is that reality is not perceived the way it really is, because Isvara wielding maya (System 1) operates the dharmafield (Systems 1 and 2) in such a way that the conscious mind (System 2) is deluded. The conscious mind cannot be blamed for this because it is programmed by maya to perceive reality the way it does: as a duality. As is illustrated in the image above, even though knowledge has forever removed the belief that one line is shorter than the other, the perception still exists. Not all illusions are visual, but all illusions are cognitive illusions because all objects are experienced in consciousness through the filter of our conditioning, System 2.

The experiment above is a simple way to demonstrate how perception functions, and a very good analogy that demonstrates the difference between experience and knowledge. The knowledge that experience is meant to deliver is interpreted by the conscious mind, System 2, according to its conditioning, the Causal Body, System 1.

For the average person who does not question the unexamined logic of his or her experience, duality is taken as a given. Even in the case of the seeker of liberation, when knowledge has removed ignorance of the true non-dual nature of reality, duality still apparently exists; just as a mirage on the desert floor still exists even when one knows it is simply a mirage. This is why you still perceive one line in the illustration above as shorter than the other even though knowledge has removed your ignorance about this and you know that both lines are identical.

The problem inherent in the way reality is perceived by most people is that we do not know what we do not know. Worse, we take ignorance to be knowledge. As long as we are blind but believe that we can see, we continue to suffer at the hands of samsara: the belief that reality is a duality rather than a non-duality, as it actually is.

So what does this mean, and how does it impact on self-inquiry?

Our little experiment with the Muller-Lyer illusion (and there are others of the same kind that illustrate this point) is beneficial for those who inquire into the true nature of reality because it highlights perfectly how the Causal and Subtle bodies function and their relationship to each other. System 1 is ‘our’ conditioning or programming, in other words how Isvara functions and plays out in our human drama as an individual or jiva. It is not personal, although it is personalized by the jiva and creates “our story.” System 1 can also be called maya, ignorance or the cause of duality, the apparent reality.

System 1 can be likened to an information processor, like a computer. It not only provides the raw material for experience, it is responsible for it by setting it in motion and recording it. System 1 is astonishingly powerful and ‘thinks’ so fast that we are almost never aware of the information until after the fact, if at all. According to cognitive neuroscientists, if we had to apportion actual brain function to the two Systems, System 1 has 40 million nerve impulses per second whereas System 2 has 40 nerve impulses per second. This means that System 1 is four million times more powerful … and faster … than System 2!

In contrast to System 1’s computational brilliance, System 2 has only marginal aptitude for creativity. It is a stimulus-response system, with pre-recorded responses totally predicated by System 1. This clearly demonstrates that System 1 controls all behaviour not attended to by System 2, which turns out to be just about everything that is apparently ‘happening’ in present time!

For most of us, System 2 or the conscious mind is so preoccupied with predictable thoughts about the past, present and future, or whatever imaginary problem absorbs it, that it is unaware of the function of System 1. Again according to cognitive neuroscientists, System 2 contributes about 5 percent of our cognitive activity. This means that 95 percent of our decisions, actions, emotions and behaviour are derived from the unobserved processing of System 1, the Causal Body. This process is automatic.

It is believed that of the 4 billion stimuli that are available to the conscious mind at any given moment, only around 2,000 of these stimuli are recorded. And which would these be? Only those stimuli that conform to the individual’s frame of reference: their conditioning. For all intents and purposes, the remaining stimuli do not exist for System 2, although they impact it in unseen ways too numerous to mention. As long as ignorance of our true nature as awareness, and therefore of Isvara, remains, our ‘fate’ is actually under the control of our conditioning or vasana load. This is called bondage and there is no escape from the relentless pressure of the apparent reality, the endless pursuit for completion…..the wheel of samsara, as it is called in Sanskrit. Hence the saying: “Life is something that happens to you while you are busy doing other things.” Or: “Man proposes and God disposes.” System 1 is running in the background at all times and is the real lead in the movie of our lives, although most of us are unconscious of this fact. We think that System 2, the conscious mind, is actually making decisions and running our lives.

The research presented by Kahneman is not postulation or speculation; it is hard science. Corroborated by Vedanta, this should make us re-consider our ideas about free will and doer-ship. It is true that relative free will is available for System 2 in that one can choose an apple over an orange, where one lives or one’s occupation. If this were not true no success would be possible for System 2 and there would be no escape from it. Knowledge of how the two Systems operate is a great help in making more intelligent choices for the apparent person. It will go a long way to ameliorate the effect of the extroverted mind that is beset by the tyranny of its conditioning (its likes and dislikes), driven by desire and buffeted by the uncertainty of life. It is quite clear that there is some other force operating that is the real doer in our lives. However, unless this relative knowledge is seen in the light of self knowledge, there is no real liberation for System 2. Life for the average person or System 2 remains like a computer game: he or she is making the moves to win the game, but actually all possible moves are already programmed by System 1 into the game. It is a set-up, a zero sum game.

In order to effect a change in System 2, whether to gain peace of mind or freedom from the bondage of ignorance, a permanent cognitive shift first needs to take place in System 1. The only way for the conscious mind, ego or System 2 (jiva) to effect a change in System 1 (Isvara) is by introducing a change in the intellect which brings about a change in the thoughts, feelings and the execution of actions in System 2. This is no easy task because System 1 or ignorance is hard wired and very powerful. Think of David and Goliath …. System 2, David, has to aim that blow to System 1, Goliath, very precisely….but it is possible.

This is because there is a two way connection between Isvara and the jiva; even though from a psychological perspective, on the relative level or apparent reality, System 1 and 2 are so unevenly matched. The conditioning that runs System 2 can be changed in System 1 where it originates from, through repeated, appropriate action based on knowledge. When it comes to deeply entrenched conditioning or vasanas, it is extremely difficult and requires constant vigilance. What this entails is every day, moment to moment asserting and re-asserting your nature as awareness with every thought word and deed.

Knowledge of how both Systems function will definitely help manage System 2 and diminish agitation psychologically, but is not enough to set one free. To gain liberation, one has to directly understand the true nature of both Systems; how they come into existence and what the common denominator between them is. This is called self-inquiry.

Ted Schmidt says:

“The jiva (System 2) is able to effect change in Isvara (System 1) through its apparent actions….. due to the fact that the jiva and Isvara share the same essential identity as pure awareness. Fundamentally, ‘enlightenment’ is a matter of awareness recognizing itself as awareness, through the lens of the jiva. Equipped as it is with the functions of mind, intellect, ego, and memory, the Subtle Body (System 2) is the mechanism through which pure awareness can, ironically, neutralize the effects of its self-imposed apparent ignorance and recognize its true identity.

The Subtle Body (System 2) is a mechanism designed and activated by the light of pure awareness, through which pure awareness, while apparently under the influence of its own self-imposed power of ignorance, can apparently experience the apparent reality by means of its extroverted perceptive organs. Even though technically awareness is not an experiencer, it can recognize its true nature when, with the aid of self-knowledge, it turns its focus “within” and consciously neutralizes the tendencies stored in its unconscious mind (System 1 or Causal Body).

The Subtle Body (System 2) is a mechanism designed to function at the behest of the Causal Body (System 1) until such time as it ‘realizes’ the futility of its attempt to find any lasting peace and happiness by following its own lead. At this point, through the application of knowledge, the Subtle Body is able to resist the influence of the Causal Body and realize the limitless bliss that is its true identity.

The functions of the Subtle Body (System 2) — i.e. mind, intellect, ego, and memory — can either be tools utilized by ignorance (the binding vasanas in the Causal Body, System 1) to extrovert the mind and thereby maintain its tyrannical control over the deluded David (the jiva), or they can be weapons wielded by knowledge used to redirect one’s attention ‘inward’ and through inquiry, slay the Goliath of ignorance.” End quote.

If no change of thought takes place in System 2, System 1 will continue running unchanged, by default. Making these changes in one’s thinking in the light of self knowledge is what renders binding vasanas non-binding. It bears repeating here that the application of self knowledge is hard work which requires the constant repetition of thoughts of the limitlessness of one’s true nature, which is beyond both Systems. Only self knowledge is capable of permanently removing ignorance of our true nature. What is clearly not known to Daniel Kahneman and not addressed in his brilliant research is: Who is the knower of System 1 and System 2?

Kahneman is unaware how much more powerful his research would be if he knew the answer to this question is awareness, what James calls System 3.

To make the changes in System 1 stick, dedicated self-discipline, constant vigilance, appropriate lifestyle choices and a devotional attitude are required. With the understanding of how the apparent individual psychology functions, it is easy to see why ignorance is so powerful and so few minds are qualified for Vedanta. It is also clear why without the qualifications required for self-inquiry it is an impossible task to free the mind from its identification with objects and the hypnosis of duality. Freedom is a gargantuan task that can only be undertaken by the purified and highly motivated mind.

What is intuition?

In the words of the famous psychologist Herbert Simon, who had great impatience for the mythologizing of intuition: “The psychology of intuition involves no magic!” The fact is our everyday intuitive abilities are no less marvelous than striking insights or “out of this world” epiphanies……only more common.

When ‘intuition’ is supposedly operating, Simon says: “The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the person access to information stored in memory (Insert: Causal Body/System 1) and this information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.”

This is why intuition is not a valid means of knowledge; it is memory and experience based and therefore based on ignorance. Only knowledge can reliably provide the information we need to free the mind from its programmed ways of perceiving reality.

Sundari

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In the old days in India it was customary for royalty to host great debates between proponents of conflicting points of view concerning the nature of reality and the realization of the Self. It is a shame that this tradition has fallen by the wayside in our materialistic times.

Nonetheless, last year I was invited to submit an article for The Mountain Path, the official publication of Ramanashram and the discussion that follows is reminiscent of the spirit of those times The topic was knowledge and experience and it proved to be a somewhat provocative article as I expected. A highly knowledgeable swami associated with the Ramanashram read it and took issue with some of my statements. His criticisms and my replies follow. We communicated indirectly through the editor of the Mountain path.

Not only does our conversation point out the importance of establishing the meaning of words when discussing spiritual matters but it covers a number of important topics: savikalpa and nirvikalpa Samadhi, experience without subject and object, the nature of liberation, the distinction between Yoga and Vedanta, enlightenment sickness and others.

Swami: I write this to heartily commend a number of excellent articles in the April issue of MP. However, in the critique of neo-Advaita by Swartz, there are a couple of jarring blemishes, marring an otherwise excellent piece. He writes:

Swartz: “One of the most common neo-Advaitic misconceptions is the idea that the ego must be destroyed or surrendered for enlightenment to happen”

Swami: One wonders if Bhagavan Ramana himself is thus labeled a neo-Advaitin? For Bhagavan constantly denied the survival of the ego upon realization and never conceded even a vestige of the “I am the body alone” idea to remain in the consciousness of a jnani. The functional personality of the jnani in the transactional realm is never to be confused with the dehatma buddhi, the hallmark of the mula avidya.

Swartz further says that based on his understanding and experience “realization of one’s self as non-dual awareness does not destroy the ego” etc. If this is to be valid, then such “enlightenment” does not destroy ignorance at all! From the viewpoint of the onlookers, the jnani appears to function with individuality and so the shastras use the word badhita ahankara (falsified ego) which cannot bind the sage similar to a burnt rope, in order to reconcile the seeming paradox for the sake of the unenlightened. Bhagavan always emphasized that this is purely a concession made for the onlookers in order to demystify the state of enlightenment as an unnatural existence and that for the jnani himself, no such confusion exists and hence does not need any such allowances!

Swartz: The problem lies in how the swami uses the word ‘ego’ and how I use it. He is correct and I am also correct. “The functional personality of the jnani is what I meant by ego.” It doesn’t disappear, at least not from the outside, as he points out. But it is neutralized by Self knowledge. So even though it exists it doesn’t exist.

Ego is also often used as a synonym for Self ignorance, what he calls ‘dehatma buddhi,’ so in that sense it is reasonable to say that enlightenment destroys the ego but that is not what I meant when I wrote that. I meant the jivatman…which is the Self either under the spell of ignorance or not. It is pure Consciousness, apparently embodied. Apparent embodiment is not a problem as long as you know it is apparent. It is my fault for not making it clear although this was not the thrust of my argument…it was only supporting logic.

Swami: I am very glad that Mr Swartz has clarified it as purely a semantic confusion, although it was entirely avoidable. Actually much of the confusions in Vedanta can be traced to semantic origin, where there is unwittingly a lack of consensus in the meaning ascribed to technical terms. Therefore, it is all the more important to conscientiously stick to Vedantic paribhasha (terminology), as we have enough issues already to grapple with and handle well, without having to rope in additional complications arising from semantic misunderstanding.

Swartz: I agree with Swami that it is important to stick with proper Vedantic terminology and that I am sometimes guilty of not doing so. It is not for lack of understanding or respect for words or the teaching tradition of Vedanta. Had my karma kept me in India in the company of Vedanta savvy people I would not have used some of the words I used the way I used them. But it so happens at the request of my guru that I spend the bulk of my time in the West where spirituality is in its infancy and where it is basically impossible to ask seekers to learn this terminology in depth. I generally get them to study Tattva Bodh to familiarize them with some very basic terminology but the subtle and advanced terms…which Swami is well versed in…are not useful because most have not developed themselves to the point where the issues that these terms address are relevant to their sadhana. So I plead guilty but ask for mercy. It so happens that even with rudimentary terminology sincere people can make excellent progress in Self inqury. And in the last analysis it is not the terms themselves but what they represent that is the basis of a successful communication. As long as two people know what they are referring to any term will do, since the comprehension that is brought about by knowledge is beyond words.

Finally, I may have been a bit naïve as to the readership of the Mountian Path. I should have known that proper sastris read it. If I had thought about it I would have been more careful in my choice of words but I was basically interested in stimulating thinking about the knowledge/experience issue among the Western readership and I was much limited by the number of words I was allotted. Had I been given two or three times the space I would have supplied the background necessary to keep the words from being misunderstood. At the end of this discussion I have copied in a more complete essay on the issues involved.

I also am well aware of the fact…as Swami points out below…that there is fundamentally no difference between knowledge and experience and have written about it many times. One of the big problems the Western spiritual world suffers is a strong contempt for knowledge. It is widely believed that knowledge is only ‘intellectual’ and that experience is somehow much superior. In India this is not such a problem because the whole Vedic tradition reveres the intellect. The knowledge/experience issue is rather like the argument in elementary particle physics concerning the nature of subatomic particles. Are the actually particles or are then waves? From one point of view they look like particles and from another they seem to be waves.

Swami: Having said that, I object to his using the term ‘ego’ for the ‘functional personality of the jnani’ because technically this meaning has nothing to do with Self-ignorance which alone – as he has correctly pointed out above – manifests as dehatma buddhi (i.e. the ego), for many jivanmuktas have functioned brilliantly in their life after enlightenment (egoless living).

Where does neo-Advaitic misconception come in here (which was what originally sought to be condemned in the first place)? Actually for all their stupidity which Swartz had set out to brilliantly expose in the original article, the neo-Advaitins themselves (not to speak of classical Advaitins) do not give this meaning to the term ‘ego’ (which Swartz has given unfortunately).

Why so? Because they all the while celebrate their own functional personality ‘which has bloomed after their ostensible enlightenment’ and gallivant round the globe guiding gullible neophyte seekers, promoting expensive spiritual camps and attractive tourist packages! In fact, the whole purpose of jivanmukti is to live here and now as ‘totally happy and fulfilled personalities’ (krta krtyaas), and not for some future heavenly paradise! So to give such a meaning to ‘ego’ is counterproductive and hence unacceptable. Hence, to claim that ‘he (Swartz) is also right’, based on a patently wrong definition (according to shastras as well as sages), is simply inadmissible because of its misleading implications. Nobody would strive after enlightenment if they were to be told that they would become dysfunctional personalities after gaining Self-Knowledge! I hope my objection does make sense. The functional personality of the seeker continues to remain but glows with an ethereal incandescence once he gains True Knowledge; purified of all dross and ignorance, it is disarming with a divinity that is radiant with a healing presence. As M P Pandit said of Bhagavan, ‘a jivanmukta is a mighty impersonality’ (!) as ‘personality’ implies in a subliminal way the survival of ego.

Swartz: I already stated in my last reply that by ego I meant the functional personality and that it was not a particularly good choice of words. One problem when talking about anything in Maya as if it is real is the fact that nothing is the same from one moment to the next. And words are often like snapshots. They give an impression that the things to which they refer are static. Whether a personality is a functional ‘radiant healing presence’ or a dysfunctional neurotic entity it is in a state of constant flux so that all terms are meant only as general indicators. If we take the personality to be real then Self realization is not only a description of an important point in the process but it could be considered as the process itself. It is not that at one second the personality is a dysfunctional mess and the next minute…on realization of the Self…it instantly becomes ‘a radiant healing presence.’ Nothing in nature is like this. One’s understanding of who one is changes irrevocably when one grasps the truth of one’s nature but the effects of that understanding work out gradually.

Does the personality ever become the Self? It is the Self but the Self is not it. Was there a specific individual called Ramana Maharshi or do the words only refer to the Self? There is no ‘right’ either/or answer. It all depends on what you know. If you look at the sun from the equator you will probably conclude that it circles the earth. If you look at it from the North Pole in the dead of winter it look like it is going around in a circle in the sky. If you assume the sun’s point of view the world seems to be going around it.

Swami: Swartz confounds the issue further saying he meant ‘the jivatman which is the Self either under the spell of ignorance or not. It is pure Consciousness, apparently embodied.’ This clarification carries its own problem again because jivatman by definition can ‘exist’ only under the spell of ignorance.

Once the ignorance is dispelled in the wake of Self-Knowledge, the jivatman resolves irrevocably into the Paramatman, the Supreme Self. If it persists, as Swartz suggests, even after enlightenment, it will lead to Advaita haani (loss of Advaita)! The total resolution of jivatman in Paramatma drshti alone is called Jnanam.

Swartz: I wonder what Swami means by ‘total resolution.’ It is a phrase that would probably be benefited by discussion. In the case of snake and the rope the snake does not return with the dawn of rope knowledge. Try as you might you can’t get it to reappear. But in the case of a mirage on the desert, for example, the water is ‘totally resolved’ by knowledge…but the water does not disappear. It seems to me this example serves to explain the ‘functional personality’ which I had the misfortune to call ego. It’s there experientially but it has no teeth unlike Swami. :+) In both cases, however, whether ignorance is there or not, a jnani knows that it is only the Self appearing as ignorance. These two examples are given in Vedantic literature to dispel the notion that the only proof of jnanam is the complete disappearance of even the appearance of the ‘functional personality.’ In both cases the resolution is ‘total’ because the Self is the jnani and it is not bothered by ego or anything else in the dream it projects, assuming that there is a dream in the first place.

Swami: In Sat Darsanam (i.e. Ulladu Narpadu), verse 23, Bhagavan Ramana makes it clear that ‘becoming food unto Him (and thus being one with Him) is indeed to see Him truly (Vision of the Self).

Further in verse 26 of the same text, Bhagavan lucidly states that the spurious entity that arises between the limited body and the infinite Self and deludes one into feeling/experiencing that one is just a body of finite dimensions only – this phantom entity alone is called the ego, the ‘I- thought’, knot of matter and spirit, bondage, samsara, the subtle body, mind, the jiva etc. The irrevocable severing of this knot (cit-jada granthi bheda) alone is Enlightenment as one is then truly and experientially awakened to one’s absolute reality. So jivatman is synonymous with ego, dehatma buddhi and a mind mired in ignorance. It does not survive Atma Jnanam ! This alone is called mano nasha, and not destruction of the functional personality or functionality of the mind. A jnani knows himself to be “pure Consciousness, with an apparent embodiment” to use Swartz’s words but then he is no more a jivatma (as Swartz would have us believe)!

Swartz: This is the same argument used above. I see it as a semantic issue and I’m happy to be wrong. Swami is right that jnanam is the destruction of the ‘I’ notion. But my understanding is that the jiva, which is a projection of ignorance on the Self, is destroyed by Self knowledge, not the Jivatman which is the Self in conjunction with the Causal and Subtle Bodies. Otherwise why would there be two different terms: jiva and jivatman? But again I’m prepared to be ‘wrong’ if there is a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ in this discussion.

It seems to me that if there is a creation it can just as easily be the Self consciously manifesting itself without ignorance as it can be a projection of ignorance. I believe this is why you have two explanations for the creation in Vedic literature: Lila and Maya. It’s always a Lila but is not known to be a Lila to the jivatman until its ignorance is destroyed by Self knowledge. What’s left is a radiant creation. But if you look at it from the Self’s perspective there isn’t even a creation and this discussion is not taking place. The only reason these word are valuable is if they stimulate inquiry or remove ignorance. The last thing I want to be is ‘right’ or believed.

Swami: Upadesa Sahasri of Shankara also states the same point as ‘experiential awakening’ because our ignorance itself is experiential to begin with and its antidote namely the ‘awakening’ has to be equally experiential too. Shankara says ‘just as an ajnani feels himself to be the body in direct experience, the jnani experiences himself to be purest spirit in equal intensity (if not in greater measure)’; it is direct, intimate and non- verbal and hence self-referential!

Swartz: I can’t argue with this. It is correct.

Swami: Further, the Self is never under the spell of ignorance; can the sun be ever covered by the clouds?1 The Self has no problem whatsoever and it is ever free. It is the mind whose vision of the Self is covered by avidya and it is only this defective vision that needs to be corrected. Thus ‘Self- ignorance’ does not mean that ignorance belongs to the Self; it only means ‘ignorance of the mind regarding the nature of the Self’. All the problems are for the mind alone including bondage and we always work for the moksha of the mind only, we are not liberating the Self from the spell of ignorance.

Swartz: Again we have a semantic problem. What Swami says is true but let me play the Devil’s advocate and say that anything that exists only exists by the grace of the Self… including ignorance and the mind. If you understand that the mind is the Self but the Self is not the mind it is proper to say that the Self falls under the ‘spell of ignorance; even though it is not possible that it do so. One meaning of the word “Maya” is ‘that which isn’t.’ How can what is not, be? Or how can what isn’t, be? Such is its nature that Maya makes the impossible possible. So it is not the words themselves that is the problem but how they are used.

When you really get into Vedanta you can see that it is not a philosophy or a belief system but that it is a means of Self knowledge. The purpose of a means of knowledge is to destroy ignorance. Both Shankara and Ramanuja accepted Vedanta as a pramana. Both were realized souls and the teachings of both enlightened many but Ramanuja had a problem with the way Shankara used words. If Vedanta is a philosophy or a religion, a belief system, then there would necessarily be only one ‘right’ way to formulate a truth because the idea is not to remove one’s notions but to see that people have the ‘right’ notion. Depending on how Self ignorance is formulated by an inquirer it may be as effective to present the vasistadvaita view as the advaita view. In the end Vedanta is like the stick used to stir the ashes of the funeral pyre; it is thrown into the fire and consumed in knowledge of the Self.

Swami: Bondage and liberation also enjoy only empirical validity (vyaavahaarika satyam), being the highest pair (among all dyads) in that order of reality. Bondage is a false notion and the release (liberation from bondage) is also equally notional, like dream food satisfying dream hunger. ‘Mana eva manushyaanam kaaranam bandha mokshayoh’ asserts the Amrita Bindu Upanishad (Mind alone – when ignorant – is the cause of bondage and mind alone -when enlightened- is the cause of liberation) .

Swartz surely understands all this but his communication is flawed enough to compound our samsara further while understanding Vedanta. I can see that his inaccurate definitions (not in line with Vedanta paribhasha) are the main culprits causing unnecessary confusions.

Swartz: I’m glad I didn’t confuse Swami. Actually I’ve received about ten emails about the article and none of them called me on my use of the word ego, preferring instead to understand the context in which the word was used, that is the general thrust of the argument. Swami’s reply was the only one that was mixed…he’s been very fair in identifying points of agreement as well as disagreement…and his criticism is justified.

Swami: Secondly, Swartz also claims that “no experience (including an experience of non-duality) can change one’s thinking patterns”. This again goes contrary to the sayings of all the sages who have said nirvikalpa samadhi is an invaluable leap for gaining aparoksha jnana (direct immediate knowledge). History is replete with instances where samadhi experiences have irrevocably changed thinking patterns and transformed lives. Bhagavan’s life itself is in incontrovertble proof of this regard

Swartz: (from the previous email) Again we are both right but I’m more right than he is. I should have said, as I usually do, that experience may temporarily change one’s thinking patterns but that it doesn’t root out the dualistic tendencies on the spot once and for all. There would be no need for Self-inquiry after an epiphany, if experience changed the way you think about yourself and the world. The single experience would root out all the vasanas and that would be the end of all dualistic thinking.

Swami: It is disappointing that whenever Swartz says some thing highly debatable, he habitually means something else and then claims ‘he is more right’ as always!

Swartz: I think Swami did not get the smiley face I put at the end of the sentence. Perhaps when you sent it to him your browser or word processor didn’t copy it. It was a joke. I actually didn’t write the reply to Swami directly. I have several friends who are Ramana bhaktas and one of them read his criticism and asked me to comment. And I wrote it in a bit of a hurry and didn’t reread it…there were a few typos etc. and my friend always gives me the benefit of the doubt so I didn’t think about it. Then the idea that a little controversy might spice up the Mountain Path came to me so I sent it on to you without polishing it up and said it was fine if you wanted to send it on to Swami. From reading his reply I could tell that he was a not particularly happy with the way I used certain words but I enjoy communicating with knowledgeable people so I decided to make this reply.

Swami: If what he really means does not come out unless he is challenged, then I think it is a poor way to communicate especially when you deal with something so subtle as Vedanta because you will carry the day with all the wrong impressions you create and walk away in triumph if no one bothers to question you and raise your hackles.

Swartz: I think Swami is projecting a little bit here. I’m sorry my words rubbed him the wrong way. I’m not trying to ‘carry the day’ or ‘walk away in triumph’ at all. I’m not a chicken so I don’t have any ‘hackles’ to be raised, either. I like a lively debate. I think I’ve been quite dispassionate in the tone of my replies and tried to give Swami the benefit of the doubt on all issues. I’m not really into Vedanta apologetics, although Vedanta does sometimes need defending, particularly now that Neo-Advaita has reared its ugly head. And although I have never met Swami it seems that he is quite passionate in defense of truth…as he sees it…and I respect that.

Swami: In Vedanta, words are powerful pointers to the Reality and one cannot afford to be casual and careless, with flippant declarations pregnant with unwarranted assumptions. Shifting stands deftly as per convenience if you find your grounds slippery will not help a healthy debate, which is what samvaada is all about. All I had said was ‘samadhi experiences have changed thinking patterns and transformed lives’ in denial of his original statement. I did not imply that one glimpse of samadhi roots out all dualistic ignorance once for all.

Swartz: I’ll ignore the pejorative terms like flippant, careless, unwarranted, slippery, convenient, etc. What he says is true but the intention of my original statement…and remember I was under word constraints in this article…was that Self inquiry is necessary to root out ignorance after an experience of non-duality. There is this notion that once you realize the Self that’s all there is to it but ignorance is amazingly persistent even in the light of truth and it usually takes time to root it out. This is exactly what Swami says in the following paragraph. If he thinks I’m being clever and slippery he’s free to read my website (www.shiningworld.com) and he will see this view expressed at numerous places.

Swami: (In David Godman’s all time classic “Be As You Are”, he has brought out the intricacies of this topic with his lucid annotations and compilation of Bhgavan’s teachings in Chapter 14 under the title Samadhi.) But once you have this direct apprehension of the Self as pure spirit in samadhi, the spiritual journey takes a different dimension; shraddha(loosely translated as faith) in shruti pramana and the Guru’s teachings get validated intimately and one pursues sadhana with renewed vigour till all vasanas are annihilated and one is established in sahaja samadhi which alone is liberation from all samsara. This may take just a few years or a few lives more depending on the intensity of one’s earnestness (mumukshutva).

Swartz: Be As You Are is a good book for beginners and David is a good writer but David should not be considered an expert on moksa or Samadhi. He is a pundit and a hagiographer and it is clear from his writing that his knowledge is only intellectual. One glaring example of his lack of understanding is to be seen in his definition of karma yoga. Had he understood the Gita properly he would not have fallen under the ‘soup kitchen’ or selfless service view that came about with the rise of ‘New’ Vedanta.

As far as the contents of the above paragraph is concerned I could not agree more. However, it seems to me that this is precisely what I was saying about the persistence of ignorance and its effects, the vasanas, after epiphanies.

Swami: The value of samadhi cannot be overemphasized in altering one’s empirical personality. A hard-nosed sceptic Narendranath Dutta was transformed into a mighty spiritual giant Swami Vivekananda by the sheer touch of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa because he was ripe and ready for the glimpse of nirvikalpa smadhi. The agonising sadhana of Sri Ramakrishna himself ended only after such an experience.

Swartz: One has no way of knowing if this is actually the case. All of this is second hand. Once a jnani dies…even before he dies…people form opinions about how it is with him. It may be true but I had the impression from reading the story of Ramakrishna that it was his association with Tota Puri Baba that caused jnanam. I don’t dispute that he had lots of Samadhi experience and that it was valuable. It’s a dharmamega, a raincloud of dharma, as it says in Panchadasi. And it roots out vasanas. In my own sadhana I had several years of Samadhi experience. But since it is in Maya it is subject to various afflictions (see the quotation below from Aparokshanubhuti). In the dream of Maya anything is possible so it could be that Samadhi causes jnanam in some cases and it could be that it doesn’t in others. In fact it is really inaccurate to say that Samadhi causes jnanam because Samadhi is an experience and experiences are not conscious so they do not tell the one to whom they are occurring how to understand them. In the case of Ramakrishna he obviously didn’t realize who he was with the first Samadhi or even after quite a few…he was always ‘going into’ and out of Samadhi. If he was ‘going out’ it means that he didn’t get jnanam. If he had he would have realized that he was the Self and that as such he was Samadhi, meaning free from duality. People make such a fuss about ‘going into’ Samadhi but they seem to forget that whatever you go into you will come out of. It’s the one to whom Samadhi occurs that never changes. But his understanding must have matured through his practice of Samadhi and set him right for moksa. Then his guru, Tota Puri, who was a Vedantin, showed up and his doubt about who he was resolved. Samadhi is not a simple thing and not necessarily an instant solution. In Aparokhanubhuti Shankar says,

127-128. While practicing Samadhi there appear unavoidably many obstacles, such as lack of inquiry, idleness, desire for sense-pleasure, sleep, dullness, distraction, tasting of joy, and the sense of blankness. One desiring the knowledge of Brahman should slowly get rid of such innumerable obstacles.

This is my point about ‘thinking patterns’ that are the result of Self ignorance.

I have a friend who is a very advanced yogi and adept at Samadhi and she experienced the Self for over twenty five years without knowing what it was. Her samadhis started at a very young age in an environment that was not conducive to inquiry, she was not particularly literate, never had a guru and had not subjected herself to the teaching tradition of Vedanta. To her the Self was just ‘something watching me’ as she experienced various subtle states of consciousness. It was only when it was pointed out to her that that ‘something’ was the Self and that that was who she was that she began inquiry and got moksa within a short time.

Swami: Countless such examples can be given. In several scriptural texts like Vivekachudamani, Drg Drshya Viveka, Panchadasi, Aparokshanubhuti and even some Upanishads (Maitreyi Up) etc. samadhi practice is extolled as an invaluable sadhana towards the final Enlightenment and as a legitimate means to convert paroksha jnanam (indirect knowledge from shastras) into aparoksha jnanam (direct and immediate knowledge). True samadhi is where the knowledge of the Self shines in the intellect in all its pristine purity, unhindered by thoughts.
It is this rare one in a million seekers who is so ripe, who catches the ‘fire of enlightenment’ (without the need of samadhi practice or prolonged nidhidhyasana) by the sheer power of antarmukha vichara or shravana alone. Such exceptions like Bhagavan Ramana or a Janaka etc. in the spiritual firmament only prove the rule!

Swartz: I can’t argue with this. My only comment is that ‘unhindered by thoughts’ does not mean that there are no other thoughts, only that the thought ‘I am the Self’ which is direct knowledge stands supreme and is not challenged by thoughts of limitation. As Ramana said when speaking about his epiphany “Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends will all other states.”

Swartz: (from the previous email) But the fact is that after an initial period when you think you are enlightened…which you are…the old doubts reappear and you are forced to remove them with Self inquiry or the practice of knowledge (jnanabyasa) as Shankara says. This is the common phenomenon of the ‘fallen yogi.’

Swami: It is better to regard such a person as a rapidly evolving yogi or a seeker, to put it simply. The contempt for ‘yogi’ who is generally described as ‘fallen’ just because he has not yet ‘reached the destination’ is rather unhealthy, to say the least! To label, judge and slot everything into categories is the good old trick of the ego as a device to preserve itself and that is why the Self eludes its grasp, being beyond all categories and indicated only by neti, neti statements which negate every conceivable clever label. A ‘fallen seeker’ is to describe only that person who relapses into the delusions of the world namely its enjoyments of senses, name and fame, powers etc. due to lack of vairagya and not to describe someone who has had glimpses of his real nature in ‘samadhi’ experience and who is trying to consolidate his new-found knowledge!

Swartz: Swami is adding a negative connotation to the word ‘fallen’ that I did not intend. The spiritual path is full of ups and downs. Both the triumphs and the tragedies are equally valuable if one is a true seeker.

Swartz: (from the previous email) Yes, nirvikalpa Samadhi is an aid to moksa but only because it burns vasanas. It is a ‘raincloud of dharma’ as Vidyaranya Swami says in Panchadasi.

Swami: I am very glad Swartz agrees even if condescendingly that it is an aid to moksha. While that itself is a big concession, if not climb-down, it is to be noted that burning up one’s vasanas is no mean achievement or an ordinary thing, to be regarded lightly as ‘only’, implying just a minor benefit. Our likes and dislikes (raga dveshas) bubbling up from a causal source (vasanas) are the main obstacles for Self-Knowledge.

Swartz: I’m not sure why Swamnathan was so affected by my statements. It wasn’t ‘condescending’ to state that Nirvikalpa Samadhi is an aid to moksa. It is just a fact unless he defines Nirvikalpa Samadhi as moksa…which incidentally many do. It could be considered a ‘minor benefit’ compared with Self realization but it is a necessary ‘minor benefit’ because jnanam won’t stick if there are binding vasanas.

He is incorrect that I made a ‘concession if not a climb down’ about Samadhi. I’ve argued for years that you would be justified in claiming that antakarana suddhi is as important as jnanam because jnanam won’t stick in a mind that has binding vasanas. And in so far as Samadhi facilitates anta karana suddhi it is definitely useful. And as I pointed out previously there are other ways to exhaust vasanas, particularly karma yoga.

Swartz: (from the previous email) The problem with Nirvikalpa Samadhi is that if it is really ‘nirvikalpa’ there is no one there to experience it, the experiencer being a subtle vikalapa. The Self doesn’t need to experience it because the Self is already nirvikalpa and it is not an experiencer, unless it is under the spell of ignorance. The knowledge that comes from Nirvikalpa is indirect because it is only after the Samadhi ends that you realize that you were ‘not there.’ This ‘not there’ inferentially proves your existence as the Self. Direct knowledge comes in savikalpa Samadhi because you are there and ignorance is there and the vision of the Self is there so the akandakara vritti can destroy the ignorance and set you free…if you identify with it.

Swami: Here we get into really murky waters. Many statements are made here with great authority, which have no basis from shastras nor attested by saints. There seems to be fundamental issues at stake which need better understanding. In nirvikalpa samdhi, the ‘spurious ‘I – thought’ is resolved in pure experience of the Self. It is a fallacy to think that the ‘ego’ is always necessary for any experience and that the ‘ego’ is the experiencer ‘you’. For any experience, what is needed is only the instrument, namely a live ‘intellect’. This is called the ‘shuddha antahkarana’ in samadhi because it is uncluttered with thoughts constituting ‘mental noise’. The ego is only a primal thought which quickly owns up any experience as ‘mine’. The experience itself precedes this ‘owning – up thought’. In deep sleep, for example, to register the absence of the world (jagat abhava vrtti), and the sense of pure ‘I am’, the resolved antahkarana (potential state of the mind) is sufficient. So one is able to recall later ‘I slept well; I did not know anything’ even though the ‘ego’ was absent.

Swartz: Actually, the Mandukya Upanishad says that there is a subtle vritti, called prajna, the sleeper ‘ego’ that is there to experience limitlessness. You have to have some kind of entity or instrument to have experience. The Self is experience free. Swami will probably object to my calling prajna an ‘ego’. It is a suksma virtti like viswa in the waking state. Yes, we should probably use the technical term but the point of that teaching, for example, is to show that neither the waking state ego (OK, entity), the dream state entity, or the sleep state entity is the Self.

Swami: But while in deep sleep, the ego was immersed in ignorance, it is consciously merged in nirvikalpa samadhi, in the brilliant light of awareness.

Swartz: It would be helpful if Swami explained the word ‘merged’ as long as we are going to quibble about terms. Is it like ‘water in water’ to quote Shankara or is there still something there other than the brilliant light of Awareness?

Swami: There is a gulf of difference between the two states and not knowing this difference has bedevilled and vitiated any meaningful discussions in this topic. Being ‘a subtle vikalpa’, as Swartz correctly puts it, the ‘ego’ is just not there in nirvikalpa samadhi by definition but that does not negate the experience of samadhi, just as the absence of the ego does not negate our everyday experience of deep sleep!

Swartz: This is correct and a good point.

Swami: Therefore to say that nirvikalpa samadhi gives only indirect knowledge is totally wrong. To say that ‘ego’ as the experiencer ‘you’ is required for any direct knowledge is galling and betrays some basic confusions evident in Swartz’s hypothesis. If one studies Manasollasa, the classic commentary of Sureshvaracharya on Dakshinamurti Stotram under an expert Acharya, the above point can be seen with true clarity.

Swartz: I’d like to know who gets direct knowledge in nirvikalpa Samadhi. It’s true that the Self is there experiencing itself, but then the Self is always experiencing itself…Samadhi or not…if ‘experience’ is the right word. And the Self is not ignorant of itself because on that level knowledge and experience are one. But unless I’m mistaken knowledge happens to someone that is ignorant. So who is ignorant in that Samadhi? The fact is that Ramana got jnanam directly in savikalpa Samadhi. He says that he was there and the Self was there and the thoughts were there. With all that going on I would not call call it nirvikalpa Samadhi. It sounds like a person having an experience of the Self. He says, Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else I was still centered on the ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.”

It’s pretty clear that there are two ‘I’s here. Ramana and the Self. If there is any doubt he says ‘previous to the crisis I…’ This ‘I‘ is not the Self ‘I’ that he is speaking of. And if this is nirvikalpa who is dwelling in what?

Swami says there is a ‘subtle instrument’ there and that’s true but is it a conscious ‘subtle instrument’…or not? Actually there is only one Self and it is always conscious but taking Maya into account it can suffer apparent ignorance and apparent knowledge. So it was there as ‘little Ramana’ who realized that he was ‘big Ramana’. As you can see when we speak of these things one needs to have a very flexible mind and understand the inherent limitation of words. Yes words are limited in what they can convey but if they are used with the right intention they can be very valuable. Much is made of Ramana’s teaching in silence but Ramana had a lot to say verbally as well. His words, if rightly understood, are a valid means of Self knowledge.

To continue with Ramana’s story the only thing that happened was that his idea of himself changed irrevocably and that caused him to ‘dwell’ permanently in the Self by his own admission. I’d say that a good way to say this is ‘dwell permanently in the Self as the Self.’ But even here there is a problem if we take the words literally because the Self being non-dual will not be ‘dwelling’ in anything other than its self. And if it does it is to be understood that it is doing this ‘dwelling’ without the aid of instruments which is indeed a peculiar kind of ‘dwelling.’ Are there two Ramanas? It depends on how you see it. There certainly can be two Ramanas if one understands that they are actually one. And you can forget the Samadhi; it served its purpose by providing him with a situation that caused him to understand who he was.

Swami: Similarly savikalpa samadhi where the subject-object division is very much present in a subtle form, the triad of knower-known-knowing is acutely awared/cognised and so the knowledge obtained is still ‘indirect’ or to put it more accurately, it is inferior or incomplete or not consummated. In nirvikalpa samadhi, direct knowledge of the Self is obtained in the (alert and still) intellect as the fundamental subject-object division has been erased, albeit temporarily. One is aware of oneself as Pure Consciousness
untouched in the slightest by matter vestures or thought waves . But as the samadhi experience ends, the old dehatma buddhi reappears as the ego but the character of its constitution has undergone a sea change! The memory of the vision of the Self has left an indelible impression in the mind, its faith in shruti and Guru is vindicated unalterably and with renewed trust in God as the Self within and the Lord without, the journey is quickened unbelievably. When the dehatma buddhi is burnt without any residual trace along with the entire bundle of causal vasanas, by repeated practice (which can be either jnanabhyasa or diving into the depths of samadhi), sahaja nishtha obtains and transmigration of the soul ends once for all. It is not in savikalpa samadhi (as Swartz says) but only in nirvikalpa samadhi that ‘one’ identifies with the akhandakara vrtti, so ‘one’ ceases to be the experiencer by the very process of identification and only then it is akhanda (undivided as the subject and object) anubhava rasa. Shankara defines samadhi as “the state of undivided abidance in the awareness of one’s identity with Brahman” (brahmaivahamasmi iti abhedena avasthanam samadhihi)

Swartz: Again we are arguing about the meaning of words. I’m taking the world ‘nirvikalpa’ at face value. Before the science of yoga evolved nirvikalpa was just a simple word that meant what it said, ‘no vikalpa.’ Over time it accumulated considerable secondary meanings. I’m saying that the ‘one’ who identifies… to use Swami’s words…is a vikalapa so the Samadhi can’t be nirvikalpa Samadhi. He seems to be saying that the someone there in that Samadhi prior to jnanam thinks it isn’t the Self but ‘becomes’ the Self through jnanam. Again, we have to deal with a pesky verb. What kind of becoming it is? Is an experiential becoming? Is it a removal of ignorance?

Yes, jnanam is anubhuti, experiential, but it is not experiential in the sense that we normally think of experience…as requiring a subject and an object. The Self does not need an instrument to ‘experience’ itself although if we take Maya into account it can experience itself through instruments. It is Self conscious and knows who it is without the aid of objects. The point of this discussion from my point of view is to bring light to the distinction between indirect knowledge and direct knowledge, between experience and knowledge. Again, indirect knowledge is not the kiss of death because it can lead to jnanam if the binding vasanas exhaust through inquiry.

It seems to me that the only way out of the word jungle is to be flexible and consider the context and the intention. I take Swami’s use of quotes around the word ‘one’ to mean that the experiencer is the Self under the spell of apparent ignorance, not an actual experiential entity.

Whatever Samadhi is we both agree that moksa is the hard and fast realization that one is the Self. I’m just saying that there needs to be someone other than the Self there…if there are binding vasanas…because the Self is not bound by the vasanas. To resuse this argument we know that there is only one Self and that it can’t forget who it is so that if it does forget it is an apparent forgetting only. And if it ‘gets’ jnanam it is an apparent gain of an apparent knowledge.

When describing experience verbs are necessary. But verbs can be a problem when you are talking about moksa because moksa is not an action or an experience. It is jnanam. Ramana uses the world ‘dwell’ and Shankar uses the word abidance. The word ‘merge’ is common in Vedantic literature too. These words give the impression of doership, action. Someone ‘dwells, abides,’ and ‘merges.’ I’m not an expert on linguistic terminology but I think these are called ‘transitive’ verbs. There is another kind of verb which is ideally suited to jnanam and that is called an intransitive verb, I believe. An example would be Tat tvam asi. Asi means ‘are’. That you are. No action is implied. It is simply a statement of fact. One is meant to gain knowledge from such a statement. It is not an instruction to act or a statement of a happening. .

Throughout Vedantic literature you will find both the language of knowledge and the language or action or experience. It is possible for knowledge to take place in the language of experience although the existence of the Mahavakyas…which is essentially what Vedanta is…seems to suggest that intransitive verbs better suit the purpose of jnanam. Prajnanam brahma is not telling anyone to do anything or experience anything. It is simply identifying the Self as Awarenesss. Aham Brahmasmi is not saying to ‘Be as You Are’ which is how David Godman’s uses an intransitive verb as a transitive verb and gives the impression that being is something that you can do. Aham Brahamasmi is saying you are limitless.

It is possible for jnanam to take place using transitive verbs if you understand the limitation of words. You cannot always just go with the literal meaning; sometimes you need to know the implied meaning. This whole topic is dealt with in detail in Vedanta as I’m sure Swami knows.

Swami: As Shankara expounds in the Br Up Bhashya (1-4-10), in the state of ignorance as well as of knowledge, the true “I”, the Self, is anubhava svarupa – the one whose nature itself is experience. But in ignorance, the experience is accompanied by all the superimposed sheaths (five koshas) which are mistaken to be the inherent features of the “I” whereas in the latter, it is totally freed from them in a direct and immediate manner and hence it is called atmasakshatkaram. So all sadhana is to extract the right experience (with the pincers of discrimination and enquiry), like the stalk from the blade of a munja grass, from our present bundle of wrong and spurious experience of the atma as a limited being.

Swartz: I agree with Shankara’s statement but I disagree with Swami’s interpretation. The purpose of sadhana, inquiry, is to extract jnanam,

knowledge. Jnanam reveals that Self experience is universal and eternal, not a specific experience with or without apparent knowledge or apparent ignorance. This negates the doer, the experiencer. The Self is not a particular experience opposed to non-self experiences. Even the supposedly ‘wrong and spurious experiences’ are the Self. If I’m wrong on this point I’d be interested to know how ‘one extracts the right experience.’ And if one does extract it what does one do with it? Because any experience is anitya, impermanent, it only has limited utility. And what exactly is a ‘right’ experience as opposed to a ‘wrong’ experience. Who makes this distinction? Certainly not the Self.

On the other hand one can learn something from experience if one is paying attention to it. One can ‘extract’ knowledge. A big billboard is not going to appear in the middle of one’s Samadhi experience saying, “Hey, stupid, read this sign; it says you are limitless Awareness.” But if you have a proper guru and have studied the sastra and have a good idea what you are looking for it is possible to realize that what you are experiencing is you. When you no longer project the Self or the world experientially as an object you are free.

Swami: Again as Shankara says in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya, Brahman is known only when It is experienced as one’s own Self which is recognised at once as infinite and limitless (brahma jnanam atmatvena anubhuyate). In Sanskrit, anubhava means knowledge and experience; only in English which is a relatively poor substitute for understanding Vedanta, if you are not blessed with enough faith in shruti or Guru, all problems of such dichotomy arise. The age-old discussion of knowledge or experience – which itself smacks of a jarring duality, going against the grain of the very Advaitic vision – is unique only to English speaking Vedantins but does not plague the natives or those who go to the shrutipramana directly in Sanskrit, who see it as a very superfluous issue. You see, it is again a linguistic problem of epistemological orientation and not a fundamental ontological issue at all. So to sum up, nirvikalpa samadhi gives direct knowledge while savikalpa samadhi gives ‘indirect’ or inferior knowledge. Unfortunately Swartz has got it upside down.

Swartz: Yes, indeed us poor silly Western people do get caught up in these trivial issues. But if this is such a trivial issue why does almost every Vedantic text take it so seriously that it gives it pride of place at the very beginning? Na karmanaa…etc. Not by action is the Self to be obtained.

Swami will understand the prominence of this statement in Vedantic literature. In fact understanding the limitation of karma…doership and experience…could be considered one of the primary qualifications of a seeker of moksa. Without it there will be no dispassion, discrimination, etc. As long as you are chasing experience…Samadhi or anything else…you are not qualified for Vedanta. Again, this is not to say that experience is not valuable, only that it will not produce moksa because the Self is already free. It is an almost universal belief among seekers that some kind of spiritual practice…read experience…will set them free.

I believe Shankar was a native Indian and it seems to have been an important enough issue for him because he makes this distinction over and over in his works. In Aparokshanubhuti, for example, he goes so far as to redefine the experiential terms native to Raja Yoga in a Vedantic way. Perhaps they originally had the meanings he gives them before they were co-opted Raja Yoga. In any case the reason he does this, I believe, is to make clear the distinction between experience, doership and the like, and knowledge. Yes, at the end knowledge and experience are one, but when one is on the path it is important to make the distinction so that one doesn’t end up frustrated and disappointed when one’s Samadhi comes to an end. Nirvikalpa Samadhi can end when a fly lands on your nose. What kind of moksa is that? When you realize that you are what you are experiencing the craving for experience ends. And it is precisely this craving for experience…spiritual or otherwise…that maintains one’s Self ignorance. His views are understandable, however, because to the best of my knowledge Ramana did not address this issue directly although you find that he uses both the language of experience and the language of identity.

Swartz: (from the previous email) The problem with savikalpa Samadhi is that if you are not very dispassionate and do not have at least rudimentary Self knowledge you will be so overwhelmed by the vision of the Self that you will not grasp the significance and you will not be freed. This happens all the time. So who is the ‘you’ in this case? It is the Self under the spell of apparent ignorance

This word ‘nirvikalpa’ is a big problem when you try to apply it to the mind. The idea in Yoga is to get to this state of mind…no thoughts. This is OK but as I pointed out above the only benefit is that vasanas are burned up when you are ‘not there’ because they have no way of working out through the mind and body and getting reinforced. But it doesn’t directly remove ignorance, as I point out although indirect knowledge is certainly better than no Self-knowledge.

Swami: The earlier comments have addressed the above para as well. Why should the word’nirvikalpa’ be a problem at all unless you have an uncommon allergy to it and an infatuation with thinking all the time? The word is meant for understanding and not for obfuscations. It occurs in shruti, smrti, and in Shankara Bhashya countless times. Bhagavan says ‘it is as difficult for a jnani to engage in thoughts as it is for an ajnani to be free from from thought.’ (Talks #141, January 19, 1936). The ego feels insecure without thinking and hence its morbid obsession with thoughts without which it feels threatened of its very survival. Eckhart Tolle explains lucidly this paranoidal fear of the ego to let go of thoughts, in his books ‘Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth’.

Swartz: To me this is a friendly debate. It is only a discussion about the meaning of words. There is nothing personal about it. All I said was the term ‘nirvikalpa’ is more appropriate to describe the Self. It is the nature of the mind to think and nirvikalpa means no-thought. So many people believe that they need to empty the mind of every thought before they can be happy. Even Ramana was thinking during his famous epiphany. It’s true what Swami says about the ego for some people but for many people thinking is a great pleasure and sport motivated by joy. The mind is a great blessing and can as well be a part of the solution as it can be the problem. If thought itself was a problem you would not have the sruti and Ramana and Shankara would have never uttered a word. Self inquiry, viveka, is very careful thought process. The Vedanta texts are full of instructions how to think.

Swami: The purpose of yogi is not to stay like a stone in a thoughtless state, as an end in itself. That would be laya and no one is holding a brief for the same. He resorts to thought-free Self-Awareness in a conscious manner, only because it facilitates the recognition of Reality, which is the consummation of his pursuit as well.

The third sutra (PYS) says ‘the seer then abides in his natural state of the Self” (tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam). True, the word ‘nirvikalpa’ is a lakshana for the Self pointing to its nature but in the sadhana stage, the mind has to take the form of the Self in order to approach its reality and gain the appreciation of the same. The use of the word ‘nirvikalpa’, therefore, lies in applying it to the mind for all ‘practical purposes’ of sadhana like meditation etc. Again to quote Bhagavan, ‘Absolute freedom from thoughts is the state conducive to such recognition’ (Talks #224, 2nd July 1936)

Swartz: This is the point I’ve been trying to make. Nirvikalpa is a word indicating the Self. If there is a yogi in Samadhi he is there because one of his vikalpas needs examination. When he gets it straight that he is Awareness and not a yogi he sees that if there is a Samadhi it is in him, i.e. in Awareness, not the other way around. A yogi is someone who is trying to quit being a yogi practicing Samadhi or self inquiry or whatever. Being a doer is a heavy weight. One gets fed up. He wants moksa. He’s looking for the ‘yoga of no contact’ to quote Vidyaranya Swami. The yoga of no contact is jnanam. And jnanam is liberation to quote Shankar and Ramana and countless others.

Swartz: (from the previous email) The word nirvikalpa is actually an adjective meant to reveal something about the nature of the Self. The Self is free of thoughts. So if you could get direct Self knowledge through teaching or otherwise you would ‘become’ nirvikalpa simply by knowing who you are.

Swami: What is this ‘knowing’ again? Paroksha jnana through scriptures cannot resolve ‘you’ into ‘nirvikalpa’ and one popular school of jnana margis remain deafeningly silent about the description of what this ‘knowing’ is all about. As a consequence, anybody who understands shastras these days can claim to be a brahmavit (Knower of Brahman) and some do indeed! They assert all spiritual knowledge is only intellectual only. Because they have not shed their dehatma buddhi, only their knowledge is intellectual (!), meaning it is all cerebral and highly mentational and will collapse without the prop of thoughts, a mode of analytical thinking.

Swartz: I’m with Swami completely on this point.

Swami: When queried as to whether one can realise the Truth by learning the scriptures and study of books, Bhagavan replied categorically “No. So long as vasanas remain latent in the mind, realisation cannot be achieved.

Sastra learning itself is a vasana. Realisation is only in samadhi’ (Talks #230). Further He says ‘The Real Existence is the only One devoid of objective knowledge. That is absolute consciousness. That is the state of happiness…and must be brought about even in this waking state. It is jagrat sushupti. That is mukti.’ (Talks #311, 2ND January 1937). Scholars addicted to ‘thinking knowledge’ and mere erudition in sastras will naturally recoil in aversion to such blunt statements of unpalatable truth.

Swartz: Can’t argue with this.

Swartz: (from the previous email) You would be ‘samadhi’. Why? Because Samadhi means that the intellect, the ‘buddhi’ (dhi) sees everything equally (sama). This is called jnanam, of Self knowledge. The intellect sees things from the Self’s point of view. The whole discussion is highly technical as you can see.

Swami: The etymology of samadhi is completely different. samyak aadheeyate sarvam yasmin iti samaadhihi – “when all thoughts are totally resolved and the mind is very well absorbed in the Self” is termed samadhi. This is grammatically valid, not what Swartz which will turn out as ‘sama- dhee’. What we are discussing is ‘samaadhi’ – please see the phonetic difference and hence the etymological meaning. The ‘equal vision’ (samatva buddhi) of the jnani is the fruit of Self- Knowledge, not a sadhana means which is what we are discussing all along. In the state of absorption of mind in the Self, there is no plurality available as “everything” to be seen ‘equally’. Incidentally, the Self has no ‘point of view’ which the intellect tries to adopt, though this can be seen only as a semantic inaccuracy as usual.

Swartz: Samadhi is a term that can be applied equally to the fruit of jnanam and a particular sadhana. Neither yoga or Vedanta owns this term. In Aparokshanubhuti Shankar defines it as jnanam in the final portion where he converts the yogic terminology to Vedantic terminology.

Swartz: (from a previous email) My statement is obvious if you have had lots of epiphanies and you still don’t see yourself as the Self…which is the case with most seekers and the audience for whom my article was intended. One has no way of knowing but I think one could make a case that while Ramana’s idea of who he was did change with that experience, he tendency to think otherwise must have still remained or he wouldn’t have taught Self inquiry. Self-inquiry goes on after one is awakened, until the last doubt about one’s nature is destroyed.

Swami: Again all wrong. ‘One’ is not considered awakened until the last doubt about one’s nature is destroyed. Bhagavan Ramana’s awakening was complete after the death experience in Madurai (lasting less than half an hour perhaps) and he did not have to do Self-enquiry later in Arunachala caves as a follow-up sadhana. Bhagavan himself made this very clear to Prof D S Sarma when queried specifically about his later day tapas. He said in unequivocal terms that his Knowledge did not diminish a whit nor enhance a little in all his later life after the Madurai experience. His abidance as the Self appeared to on-lookers as a severe penance for ‘attaining’ something! Bhagavan taught Self-enquiry to all seekers who came to him because it delivered the goods for him (in terms of moksha) with supreme efficiency and in His equal vision (sama dhee). He saw no reason why it should not work for others as well! Incidentally this is a demonstration of the true humility of a jnani who does not put himself on a higher pedestal and disqualify others from walking the same path. To think that ‘Bhagavan taught Self enquiry, as a counter to the lingering tendency to think otherwise (dualistically) after his famous death experience’ is a travesty of historical truth.

Swartz: Swami jumps to conclusions rather quickly. I’m not saying that it was one way or the other as far as Ramana is concerned. In the next paragraph I’m quite willing to accept the idea that it happened all at once and only once. But what difference does it make how it happened? We have no way of knowing exactly how it is with anybody. That it happened is all that matters for seekers. If Ramana can do it anyone can do it. We can accept Ramana’s words because he was an honest man but how we interpret them depends on our beliefs and opinions. How it was with Ramana is how it was with Ramana. This does not mean that if it isn’t the way it was with Ramana for you you’re on the wrong path. In fact, considering the uniqueness of Ramana’s moksa his is definitely the exception. Most everyone in the spiritual world is a sincere person striving for freedom and each will somehow be eventually led to freedom by the Self according to their situation.

Swartz (from the previous email) It may be that Ramana’s epiphany did root out all his dualistic thinking all at once but this is extremely rare…if it happens at all. Maybe he just liked sitting in caves but usually one retires from life and cleans up the residual dualistic thinking with Self inquiry which is the application of Self knowledge to the mind. But my statement is not obvious if you have not had these samadhis and have faith in the words of the Yoga Shastra or a particular Yogi. I’m not arguing for or against Yoga or Vedanta, knowledge or experience. I’m just trying to apply the principles of Self inquiry to this age old discussion

Swami: It is gratifying to see that Swartz gives the benefit of doubt after all to Bhagavan’s one stroke attainment, which was actually the case. But for most seekers, one would agree to what he has said as subsequent sadhana to consolidate the knowledge gained in a beatific glimpse till it becomes effortless natural abidance in the Self.

Swartz: Finally, to answer the last issue, while nirvikalpa Samadhi is a valuable non-experience on the way to moksa, it is by no means necessary for moksa.

Swami: I am very glad at last that Swartz gives a honourable place for samadhi in the scheme of things and does not condemn it like some modern jnanamargis who are great scholars but nevertheless have a pathological aversion to yoga sadhana. To say it is a ‘non-experience’ is quite fine as it is a healthy device to negate the linguistic conditioning that any experience has to necessarily do with “sensory apprehension” or “grasped by thought”. This is a typical limitation of translating anubhava as ‘experience’.

Since there is no other better word in English, we are forced to use this word which is alright if we clearly keep in mind the severe limitations of linguistic conditionings; otherwise one can easily get carried away by wrong and often unintended implications. Also ‘experience’ in common parlance implies an ‘enjoyer’ of the same as ‘experiencer’, whereas in ‘samadhi anubhava’, the experiencing ego (pramata, the knower) is itself resolved. What shines is pure knowledge (or experience) without anyone inside to own it up as ‘mine’. Bhagavan used the good old example of a radio which sings without a ‘singer sitting inside it’! It is also akin to the Cheshire cat’s grin which remains long after the cat has vanished out of existence, in the brilliant spiritual allegory portrayed in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. This is the ultimate paradox in Vedanta where True Experience remains after assumption of translatability, for elucidation of this idea.

Swartz: Can’t argue with this. Very good!

Swartz: (from the previous email) The Self gives you the experiences you need. If you have a burning desire and you pray to the Self for moksa it will guide you by the most efficient route. Ramana got moksa without practicing any yoga. It just happened because he was ripe. One doesn’t set out to be a yogi or a jnani. These are just further limited identities. It is something that happens when one is true to the desire for freedom. People who are interested in spirituality who have not walked the path to the end will be necessarily be confused by these distinctions.They don’t get worked out, however, simply by believing one point of view or the other. They get resolved by experience and reflection.

Swami: Very true. Simply believing some point of view does not take one far. One’s own reflection and analysis of life’s experiences, in accordance with the logic of the shastras and not as per one’s own pet whims and prejudices, will go a long way in clearing all fundamental cobwebs of confusion in the spiritual journey. That is what manana (contemplation) is all about. But as one saint told this writer, manana should eventually lead to “mana na” (‘no mind’) where one transcends the analytical and logical mind and allows the still and receptive intellect to intuitively facilitate the recognition of one’s ultimate reality in a direct, immediate and non-verbal manner. This last stage is possible only by the operation of Grace in total surrender and not through human effort

Swartz: I completely agree with this statement. To me the most important point is the phrase ‘in accordance with the logic of the shastras.’ The idea of Self inquiry in the modern Neo-Advaita world taught by Papaji and many others that you ask the question ‘Who am I?’ and then wait for an answer is completely ridiculous. The great souls who went before have left a great legacy to guide inquiry and anyone who fails to make use of it is severely handicapped. It is amazing that Papaji claimed that Ramana was his guru…who doesn’t these Neo-Advaitic days…but evidently had no understanding of Ramana’s notion of Self inquiry and the importance of scripture. If you want my take on the Papaji ‘lineage’ idea there is a essay on the home page of my website entitled ‘The Horse’s Mouth’ that exposes the bankruptcy of the Neo-Advaita claims of lineage.

Swartz: (from the previous email) This is an age old discussion brought about by the apparent differences between jnana and yoga, knowledge and experience. Many yogis with Samadhi experience…both nirvikalpa and savikalpa…get mosksa, not necessarily because of the Samadhi but because these samadhis stimulate Self inquiry. And many yogis with Samadhi experience pigheadedly cling to the notion that enlightenment is purely experiential and do not get moksa because moksa is freedom from experience and the experiencer. And you also have jnanis who have no Samadhi experience who get moksa through sravanana, manana, and nididhyasana.

Swami: This is a very unfortunate assertion and not in good taste either. Enlightenment is not of two kinds, one corrresponding to yogis and another kind which vibes with jnanis. The enlightenment of the jnani (through sravana etc.) too is experiential only. It is the same for anyone, whether a yogi, or a bhakta or a jnani. We have discussed the limitations of the word ‘experience’ earlier in detail and so will not repeat it ad nauseum. Bhagavan Ramana has extensively used the terms ‘aham sphurana’, ‘jagrat sushupti’ ‘sahaja samadhi’ and ‘avasthatraya sakshi’ in the context of enlightenment. According to his testimony, a jnani is literally aware of all the three states of existence (see Talks #313). These terms describe enlightenment as NOT ANYTHING OTHER THAN EXPERIENTIAL AWAKENING to our true nature. We request Mr. Swartz in all humility to ponder over these eternal verities (available for verification in one’s own experience), shedding all preconceived prejudices and notions. Advaita does not end with flexing one’s intellectual sinews and communication muscles or flaunting one’s scholarship. If someone is impervious to Bhagavan’s revelations in this matter, he is welcome to wallow in his own views.

Swartz: This is a good example of the importance of the discussion of experience and knowledge. I have said above once or twice that there is no difference between knowledge and experience when one has Self knowledge. I think Swami is missing my point…probably because the different way we use some terms. My point is a simple one and I don’t mind making it again. There is deep craving in everyone for experience brought about by a lack of the knowledge that one is whole and complete actionless Awareness. Getting what one wants is intended to remove the uncomfortable feeling of inadequacy, incompleteness, etc. When a person does get what he or she wants he or she feels whole and complete because the craving for the object leaves the mind. But this action produces a vasana and the craving returns. When one is engaged in life in this way one rarely thinks clearly about one’s experience. One simply chases the ‘high’ that comes from getting one’s desires fulfilled.

This psychology operates in people chasing the big experience of moksa too. In other words they define moksa as something that one can obtain experientially just as one can enjoy a good meal or some other pleasure. So they set out to do certain things to get it. Most everyone gravitates to yoga because most everyone thinks he or she is a doer and that the results of his or her actions will bring happiness. Usually hatha yoga first…the cultural poses…then to the meditation poses. In their quest for Samadhi…a blissful state…they don’t tend to question the assumption that you can get what you already have…the bliss of the Self…through action, the practice of Samadhi being an action. Mind you, I’m not taking about Samadhi, only the ‘practice’ of Samadhi. To repeat, the Self is limitless and any action that one would perform to obtain it would necessarily be limited because the doer is limited. So the result of any action would not be limitless.

So how do you get what you already have? Only by knowledge. You need to know what the Self is and that you are It. Vedanta and Ramana and every jnani worth his salt says it, “By jnanama alone is the Self realized.” So what needs to happen at this point is that while one pursues one’s sadhana…Vedanta does not say don’t do sadhana, this is a Neo-Advaitic perversion…one should pursue knowledge as well. Yes, at the end they are non-different. But at this stage they need to be discriminated. Almost everyone who has sincerely done sadhana comes to realize that his or he practice is not producing the desired result. Yes, maybe it is making life a bit more manageable but it is not tantamount to liberation. So my only intention is to provoke some thought on the topic. I’m not for or against any idea…they all have limitation. My intention is to present a viewpoint…the Self…that allows one to understand the relative importance of any idea.

At the end of this document I’ve copied in an essay I wrote giving a more complete version of the knowledge and experience argument. It is more detailed that the one published in the Mountain Path and had Swami read it first we probably would not have burdened each other with so many words.

Swartz: (from the previous email) The problem is that most yogis have a built in prejudice against jnana, knowledge. And most jnani types have an unhealthy disdain for experience. So both try to keep ‘enlightenment’ in the strict within the strict confines of their beliefs. One of the most common statements one finds in Vedic literature is ‘about this topic even the sages are confused.’ It’s easy to find a ‘sages’ on opposite sides of every conceivable issue so what your favorite sage says is not always correct. I got moksa through Swami Chinmayananda but I do not agree with some of his statements about Self realization. Faith is good…up to a point. But faith in the words of scripture or the sages means that you don’t know. It is like being a little bit pregnant.

Swami: Well, well, we knew it was coming! But one wonders whether it is moksha from samsara or merely from the most powerful personality of the revered Swamiji, who was perhaps the greatest visionary-cum-missionary of the last century. Till the end he never laid claims to moksha himself! No jnani ever does!!

Regarding ‘faith’, a poor translation for ‘shraddha’ we have this to say. Faith is good all the way because it is fulfilled in Knowledge and not falsified as Swartz unintentionally implies.

Swartz: I don’t believe Ramana, for example, every said he believed in the Self. He encouraged bhakti and so does Vedanta but jnanam is jnanam, not shraddha. At a certain point all doubt is resolved.

Shradda is a very interesting concept in Vedic culture. It does not mean blind faith, but faith pending the result of inquiry. So you admit your doubts while you believe that you are the Self at the same time.

Ramana didn’t say he was enlightened? Then what is that large statement on the temple wall if it isn’t a statement of enlightenment? He says, “I am the Self.” For certain he didn’t go around spouting it out verbally every day because he was a humble man but as far as the claim of moksa is concerned I don’t think Ramana ever said he wasn’t either. If the idea that you are enlightened is a problem then a jnani would be duty bound to claim that he wasn’t enlightened. And Ramana spoke as the Self…what is that if it is not saying you are enlightened? Some jnanis, for reasons known only to themselves, make a point of concealing it. Additionally, the very depth of his knowledge is a statement that he is enlightened.

There are many ways to show the world that you are free that do not involve words…the way you live for example. And there are ways to use words to discuss your freedom that show that you are not suffering enlightenment sickness…which I define as the ego co-opting the Self’s point of view. Every time a jnani opens his mouth he is saying he is enlightened, although not directly.

In fact the whole enlightenment business is a bit of a joke because if this is a non-dual reality who isn’t enlightened? In the Kena Upanishad there is a statement “The one who says, ‘neither do I know nor do I not know It, knows It.” This is certainly an acceptable way of saying one is enlightened.

The whole issue is very silly. In fact, out of the six or so billion people in the world only a very tiny fraction of the very tiny fraction who are seeking what they already have have a problem with this idea. And interestingly, Vedanta actually says that you should claim your enlightenment…as a sadhana…because even if you don’t ‘feel’ that you are enlightened it is important to recondition your mind to get in harmony with its true nature. As you think so do you ‘become’ is one of the basic principle of Yoga. Of course this is not an instruction to blab it endlessly to the world, although it is often a useful tool to get friends and acquaintances who insist on seeing you as the fool that you do not wish to be to engage in serious satsang.

Swami makes a good point, however, because the issue is whether or not you have a need to tell the world. But even this is a tricky issue because when one actually does wake up…not everyone responds to his or her awakening in the extremely dispassionate way Ramana did…one is so inspired and so happy that one just blurts it out innocently like a baby and then later as the excitement cools becomes silent. But there are no rules for jnanis. It is up to the people who are hearing these words to discriminate.

Finally, behind this whole idea that ‘he who says doesn’t know and he who knows doesn’t say’ is the idea that enlightenment is a special status. But it is not a special status…although certain ‘spiritually inclined’ human beings make a big deal out of it. Ramana is a great example of this. I love the story about him returning to the ashram when the gates were closed and sitting outside until they opened. There was no abimanam…just a regular person sitting in the dirt waiting to get in. It is the nature of Self and the Self is all there is.

It is a good point, however, because with the consumerization of enlightenment every Tom, Dick and Harry is ‘enlightened.’ All you have to do to realize it is walk around the cafes, etc. in Tiruvannamalai and you will find dozens of enlightened people eager to wake you up. Is this bad? Yes and no. It’s a shame but it is a fact. And it is good too because there are so many frauds that it makes one think more carefully about what enlightenment might be.

As far as I am concerned evaluating people by this very abstract standard is not helpful. Whether or not they are a cultured person following dharma is a much better standard. There is a saying by a great Zen master that encapsulates this point of view nicely, “Next to good manners enlightenment is the most important thing in the world.”

Even if you don’t think you are enlightened you should treat yourself and others as if you were, including those poor self-deluded fools who think enlightenment confers some kind of special status.

Swami: Faith does not come under the adhyaropa-apavada category in Vedantic teaching methodology. It is more like dating before marriage and doting after! Love is common in both forms but it is intensified after the marriage because it has fullfilled all the expectations of happiness that one had before. The love present in dating was a fond hope; in a successful marriage the hope is redeemed in the fulfilment of its promise. So dating resolves into doting, if you may call it so but love is not jettisoned like a ladder which has served its purpose. Shraddha in shruti pramana is exactly like that except that it never fails. That is why, in texts like Vivekachudamani, Panchadasi, Kaivalya Navaneetam etc. the disciple after getting enlightened goes into raptures of ecstasy and gratitude towards the guru who made this possible, for his faith and emotional investment in the guru and his teachings has paid off in svanubhava and stands splendidly vindicated. He does not say ‘Thank you but I don’t agree with some of your teachings, let me have the freedom to disagree and go my own sweet way’!

Swartz: Swami Chinmaya was a great jnani. I stayed with him for two years. I carried his oxygen bottle, flew around the world to various centers with him, shared living accommodations with him, lived in his ashram when he was there and have the greatest respect for him. He was a very classy guy and he looked after me like a father and treated me like a brother. He took care of my living expenses, except my air travel, during that time. His style of teaching was sakya bhava. Once I lost my pen and he gave me his gold Cross pen and didn’t ask for it back.

It’s true he never verbally said he was enlightened in public but there are many other ways to say you are enlightened and it was clear if you knew him that he knew it and didn’t mind you knowing it. One interesting thing about him that most people don’t know is that he did not encourage bhakti of the guru’s form, and on the very rare occasions when they did pada puja he gave a little talk about what one was actually worshipping…and it wasn’t Swami Chinmayanada. He encouraged Self bhakti.

In fact he used to make great fun of himself as a guru and spoke harshly of his weakenesses and didn’t try to conceal his addiction to tobacco, for example. He had a very intimidating manner and he often spoke of his faults in such a way that made it difficult to love him in a sentimental way. He was ruthelessly critical of mindless guru bhakti and often said as he stroked his long beard with a gleam in his eyes, “The longer the beard, the greater your doubt should be!” He said life was short and the guru would be gone one day and you needed to be your own guru and he was such an excellent teacher that many were set free by his teachings.

He encouraged a questioning attitude, self reliance and independent thinking. He sent me out to teach Vedanta and greased the wheels to make my life easier after I left and we kept in touch until the day he died offering good advice whenever I needed it. He even sent me to see a very great mahatma of the same caliber as Ramana, Swami Abhedananda from Trivandrum, to deepen my understanding of Bhakti Marga. He encouraged me to find my own voice and think for myself and teach Vedanta according to my own lights. I went my own way but that in no way affected the love we had for each other and the bhakti for the Self that he instilled in me. I happen to think that his ‘modern’ Vedanta was good for the times but like the New Vedanta that came out of Vivekananda’s teachings it distorted the tradition in certain subtle ways. I did not think that his ‘great Hindu nation’ idea was appropriate for a Vedanta class but one can not deny the profound effect he had on Indian spirituality…all for the good. In fact Swami Dayananda parted company with him on the topic of how to teach Vedanta.

Your guru is your guru and you are you. Only in a spiritual sense is he or she you. You don’t owe the guru anything, including gratitude, although it is impossible not to feel it when contact with a mahatma transforms your vision. What is given is given freely. The Self puts the guru in your life when you are ready for moksa and the Self makes the guru dance to your tune. Bhakta bhaktiman. The guru is the devotee of the devotee. It’s a two way street. This is not arrogance; it is just the truth.

Swami: Lastly Bhagavan Ramana is NOT just ‘one of your favourite sages who need not always be correct’ just because even sages may ‘differ’ (not confused) in only in communicating their experience but not in content. Bhagavan enlivened shastras in an incomparable way and revitalised the vichara marga in a very original and unique manner. So shraddha is indispensable to grasp his subtle and profound teachings which have a seeming simplicity. The Upanishad says “ Only to those great souls who have supreme devotion to God and have equal devotion to their Sadguru, the teachings of the Upanishads shine brilliantly without obstructions” (yasya deve para bhaktihi yatha deve tatha gurau, tasyaithe kathithahyarthah prakashante mahatmanah).

We respect and love Mr Swartz highly for his consistent commitment to the pursuit of Vedantic teachings over decades, it is not an easy achievement for it demands tremendous sacrifice in one’s life. It is our fond hope that he will take the entire discussion in the spirit of a healthy debate. We are open to any corrections from his side. For until such time aparoksha jnana is gained, we all sail in the same boat towards the same goal in the same direction with faith in God and the words of the Guru and the scriptures. We do not claim to be absolutely right in our understanding, for we are only fellow travelers in a spiritual odyssey where our aim is only to partake of love and insights along the way and never acrimony.

Om Sri Ramanarpanamastu !!

Swartz: This is certainly a useful exchange of views. I took no offense and did not intend to give any. I’ve spent more than twenty five years in India and love it because of people like Swami who understand the greatness of Vedic culture. I appreciate his passion for the truth. I’m inclined to post it on my website if Swami does not object.

Om Tat Sat

Is Enlightenment Knowledge or Experience?

The Vedas define enlightenment as freedom from suffering, the most desirable human goal. To attain freedom they present two apparently contradictory paths. One, the experiential approach, is known as Yoga. It says that there are two basic states of experience, suffering and freedom from suffering. There are many yogic lifestyles employing various yogas, techniques, that are meant to set one free. The most well known are Astanga Yoga, the eightfold path, and Kundalini Yoga. Both promise experiential enlightenment. ‘Experiential’ means that through spiritual practice one sets in motion a process that eventually results in freedom. Astanga Yoga helps the seeker patiently develop a disciplined mind, one that is capable of attaining Samadhi, a high thought free state of Consciousness which it defines as freedom. Kundalini Yoga is also a disciplined approach that through certain rigorous practices, ‘awakens’ the dormant spiritual energy and generates mystical experiences that lead to the ‘final’ experience, union of the individual with the universal.

The second approach to enlightenment is called Vedanta. Like Yoga it presents freedom from suffering as the most desirable human goal…but it does not share the yogic view concerning the means.

To understand the validity of these views we need to consider a basic existential problem: what is the nature of reality?

If we are going to accept Yoga’s view, reality needs to be dualistic. A dualistic reality provides the proper conditions for action and experience: an ego experiencer and a world of experiencable objects, gross and subtle, one of which is the self, the experience of which is freedom. On the surface at least, this seems to be what we have. I am here, the world is there. I interact with the world and make experience happen. If I do the actions recommended by my particular brand of yoga… meditation and the like…I can set myself free and attain a state of ‘union’…yoga means union…or non-duality. Non-duality is freedom.

Freedom from what? From the struggle to be free. Buddhism’s statement that freedom is ‘nirvana.’ a thought free state of mind, or ‘sunya,’ the void, is a yogic or experiential idea of enlightenment. Why is non-duality freedom? Because in a non-dual reality there are not two states, suffering and freedom from suffering, bondage and liberation.

Vedanta sees a problem with the yogic view because it says that, contrary to appearances, reality is non-dual and the nature of the self. Because one is never without a self one is never lacking non-dual experience and therefore the attempt to obtain such an experience is gratuitous. It says that you are a conscious being and that all your experiences are held together by one thread and that thread is you, Awareness or Consciousness. How can there be experience without you? You are always present and self-evident in every form of experience. You are the very essence of experience. If this is true then the solution to suffering, liberation, is only available through understanding the nature of reality, the self. The ‘path of understanding’ is often called ‘jnana yoga.’

Vedanta contends that for the experiential argument to hold water the non-dual ever-free self would have to be separate or away from you. But the nature of the self…and there is only one self according the Upanishads…is chaitanya, consciousness. What is always present is you, consciousness. So the self is never away from you, that is to say it is never perceived as an object of experience. If it is an object then there was a time when it was not experienced and it will eventually not be perceived. But this is not possible because it contradicts experience. When did you not experience? Even the absence of experience, like deep sleep, is experience, a pleasurable one at that.

Vedanta presents another argument that calls into question the yogic idea of enlightenment. Remember, Yoga counsels action, the result of which is enlightenment. To do action a doer is required. But Vedanta contends that if there is a doer the doer is limited in nature. Secondly, if the doer is limited the results of its actions will necessarily be limited. But freedom, liberation, is limitless. No number of finite actions will ever add up to limitlessness. Vedanta says that enlightenment is the discovery that one is not a doer, that one is limitless actionless consiousness already…and it offers a proven means by which the self can be known.

Vedanta also argues against the evolutionary or yogic view that the one self, limitless consciousness, ‘became’ limited at some point in the distant past and is now involved in the patient process of evolving out of its material roots toward some divine experience of oneness. If we accept the yogic view that the self is a limited transformation of Pure Consciousness or the product of material evolution, how will it ever know or experience limitless consciousness? Just as the senses cannot experience the mind/ego entity, the mind/ego cannot ‘experience’ its far subtler source, the self.

Vedanta, however, does not dismiss Yoga altogether. It provisionally accepts Yoga’s limited dream of duality and its experiential orientation because that is where we are when we begin to look for a way out. If we accept the idea that consciousness is transformed into a world of experience through some mystical or ‘supramental’ process then as consciousness ‘involves’ itself with itself as matter, its ‘light’ or consciousness is seemingly absorbed by the objects and apparently stops shining. For example, even though light reflecting off my body falls equally on a mirror and the black wall on which it hangs, I will only see myself in the mirror. The self is also seemingly absorbed by a mind clouded with emotion and thought, making it unexperienceable for all intents and purposes. It can, however, be ‘experienced’ in a mirror-like pure mind. So the way to get the experience of the (reflection of) Self is to purify the mind. This is the essence of Yoga as explained by Pantajali in his Yoga sutras.

Vedanta does not accept that the experience of the self in the mind is freedom but it does value a pure mind for another reason: only a pure mind is capable of self inquiry. It is capable of self inquiry because it has a clear experienciable reflection of the self as a basis for inquiry. Only self inquiry will produce freedom because self inquiry produces self knowledge…which is just the removal of ignorance about the ever-free nature of the self. And if this is a non-dual reality the problem of suffering is ignorance based.

In fact, Vedanta argues that Yoga, experience, is at least as valuable as knowledge because you can’t gain firm knowledge unless you have a pure mind and you cannot get a pure mind without doing some work, i.e. altering your experience, since the mind is both the instrument of experience and the instrument of knowledge. Therefore, Yoga is essential for anyone seeking freedom. As what? As a preparation for Self knowledge. In this light epiphanies of all ilk, no matter how fleeting, if properly contextualized by the teachings of Vedanta, can be valuable aids for liberation. Vedanta only reminds the seeker that discrete experiences are impermanent…and limited freedom is not freedom at all.

Actually, the confusion that has bedeviled the spiritual world for millennia is little more than a linguistic problem…but therein lies the rub. When enlightenment is presented experientially it is presented as an attainment, a merger, a union or a shift. Merger, union and shift are verbs. Verbs are action words that give the idea that something happens or is happening. Of course we know that if reality is non-dual nothing ever happened; the perception of action is simply the result of the moving instrument through which reality is being perceived i.e. the mind. The moon seems to be racing across the sky when viewed against the backdrop of moving clouds. When you no longer assume the mind’s point of view, time, meaning motion…and experience is just motion or change…stops. If we look for an implied meaning in our experiential metaphor is it unreasonable to assume that the ‘experience’ of freedom is just a shift from the individual’s point of view to the point of view of the self?

And if it is a shift, what kind of shift it it? Is there any time when you are not conscious? If the answer is no…which happens to be the truth according Vedanta…then the ‘shift’ is merely a loss of ignorance, not an experiential gain.

Experiential language need not be a problem if you understand the limitation of words and know that the implicit meaning of words can produce knowledge. It is also acceptable if it is understood that literal interpretation of words can easily be misleading, particularly on the road to enlightenment. Perhaps the unthinking acceptance of experiential words is the primary factor in the failure of seekers the world over to set themselves free. It is an enormous problem because modern spiritual literature and the words of deluded teachers create the impression that enlightenment is only experiential. Additionally, there is an insidious corollary to this misunderstanding: knowledge is ‘only intellectual’ and not a valid means of enlightenment.

Vedanta and any realized soul worth his or her salt, including one of the greatest modern sages, Ramana Maharshi, categorically state that only through self knowledge is enlightenment ‘gained.’

To gain knowledge a means is necessary. If you want to know the world you need senses. If you want to know ideas the senses will not work; you need an intellect. Inference and testimony are other valid means of knowledge. These means are fine when it comes to objects and ideas but how can they help…if the self is the object of knowledge? They cannot help because the self cannot be objectified. Try to see yourself. You cannot because you are consciousness and consciousness is eternal and non-dual; it does not split itself into subject and object and become you, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Objectifying the self is rather like trying to see the eyes with the eyes. This example is useful in another way because the only way to see one’s eyes is to look into a mirror. Two mirrors are available for the spiritual seeker, a pure mind gained through experience and the teachings of Vedanta. A pure mind is not enough for enlightenment, however, because any experience, including experience of the self, is only as good as one’s understanding or interpretation of it. And any experiencer can only interpret experience according to what it already knows. If the experiencer, the ego, is a product of self ignorance in the first place, this being a non-dual reality, then any interpretation of the self…or the significance of an experience of the reflected self…would be incorrect. In fact the belief that the self can be attained through action…and the many other ignorances masquerading as knowledge in the spiritual world…is the result of incorrect understanding of the nature of the self.

In rare cases, like that of Ramana, it is possible to understand the nature of the self without outside help apparently in one go. But this does not apply to the rest of us. However, help is definitely available in the form of Vedanta, a purified word mirror whose prakriyas, teachings, are sruti, revealed self knowledge. Revealed knowledge is knowledge that has not been contaminated by the human mind. The knowledge that makes up Vedanta is also confirmed by smriti, the experience self realized souls, like Ramana and many others. Vedanta is a pramana, a means of self knowledge that has been setting people free for millennia, not a philosophy or a school of thought. There is no experience involved in enlightenment because we are already free…as we are.

Knowledge is not gained like experience is gained. It is simply the removal of ignorance. Coupled with a pure mind it provides the guidelines for self inquiry. The purpose of self inquiry is not experiential; it is to remove self ignorance. Remember; there is only one self and you are it; therefore whatever you experience can only be you.

Nobody can remove your ignorance but help is required for the removal of ignorance. Inquiry needs to be guided by knowledge, not by personal interpretation of reality, which is always biased, based as it is on beliefs and opinions.

Simply asking ‘who am I?’ will not help either. First, because the jury is not out on this topic; you are limitless actionless consciousness and not the experiencer entity you take yourself to be. And secondly, because inquiry is the application of knowledge in the form of the discrimination between the real and the unreal. And to develop discrimination one needs to understand the difference between the Self as pure consciousness and the Self as mind or manifest consciousness, not with the idea of transcending or destroying the mind experientially but to destroy all experiential notions, including the pernicious idea that it is possible to transcend or destroy the mind at all.

Discrimination removes one’s identification with the mind/ego/doer entity…which is not an actual experiential entity as we think, but only an erroneous self notion. Vedanta unfolds the method of discrimination by scientifically describing in great detail the nature of the world, the individual, and the self.

Since the Sixties, the exponential increase in spiritual seeking is a telling commentary on consumerism’s limitations as a solution to the problem of suffering. Unfortunately, what could be a conscious search is almost always a blind fumbling, an attempt to fashion a modern relevant means of self knowledge. Consequently we have the ‘New Age’ with its plethora of quasi religious pseudo therapies and…since the Nineties…Neo-Advaita, the modern ‘satsang’ movement whose spiritual deficiencies are apparent to even the untrained eye.

There is no need for a ‘relevant’ modern approach to the spiritual quest because there is nothing modern about human beings. A few material gadgets do not qualify the human race as spiritually evolved. Ignorance, greed, fear, superstition, selfishness and vanity have not been dispelled on account of the internet and the iPod. Human beings are human beings. It so happens that a long time ago, the Vedic seers solved the human problem once and for all. For who are inclined and qualified the means of self knowledge that has served for millenia is with us today in the form of the teaching tradition of Vedanta, the royal road to Self realization.

A few years ago, I was interviewed at my flat in Tiruvannamalai behind Ramanashram, about the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, one of India’s greatest sages and presently the most famous symbol of Self Inquiry in the West. While examining some of Ramana’s teachings, I have tried to introduce the reader to the spiritual context of Ramana’s enlightenment, because most Westerners, in spite of their appreciation of and devotion to Ramana have almost no appreciation of it.

The centerpiece of this interview is an in depth analysis of Ramana’s enlightenment experience.

Interviewer: I have some quotations from Ramana’s teachings that I have been thinking about and I would like your take on them. After saying that the self is existence, consciousness and bliss, Ramana is asked “When will the realization of the self be gained?” and he replies, “When the world which is what is seen has been removed, there will be realization of the self, which is the seer.”

James: Let me give you a little background on Ramana’s statements. There are two great traditions under the umbrella of Vedic culture: Yoga and Vedanta—the Science of Self Inquiry. Yoga deals with the experiential side of spiritual life and is for the purpose of purifying the mind. It is not a valid means for self knowledge, because its stated aim is a particular type of experience called samadhi. Yogis sometimes attain enlightenment because they develop curiosity about consciousness, the self, as a result of the subtle experiences their practices generate. They may intuitively draw the correct conclusion about the self and their identity as consciousness during one of their samadhis, like Ramana did during his death experience. Or they may gain enlightenment by reflecting on their experiences over a period of time.

Many have epiphanies similar to Ramana’s. But almost no one becomes enlightened during a particular experience, because the meaning of the experience or the significance of the one to whom the experience is occurring, is not assimilated. The hard and fast understanding “I am the self” needs to come out of self experience to set you free.

The question ‘when will the realization of the self be gained’ is a typically yogic question. Yoga is for doers, achievers. The questioner believes the self is something that is not available all the time, something to be gained. It is natural to want what you do not have, if you think it will benefit you in some way. One of the meanings of the word yoga is ‘to obtain.’ Obviously, you can only obtain something you do not already possess.

Vedanta, the Science of Self Inquiry, contends that the self cannot be gained at some time in the future, as a result of action. It is a path of understanding and employs a language of identity. For example, it says, ‘You are consciousness.’

Notice that this sentence is not an injunction. It is a statement of fact. It says that the self cannot be gained because you are the self already. If there is anything to gain, it will be self knowledge. Self knowledge is only a loss of ignorance, not a gain of the self.

In any case, Ramana’s response is in harmony with traditional Vedanta. Ramana had the greatest respect for the knowledge enshrined in The Science of Self Inquiry. Contrary to the notion in vogue today, concerning the irrelevance of the ancient tradition of Vedanta, he was very scripturally astute. He even wrote a scripture, Upadesha Saram, which has been granted the status of an Upanishad by the traditional Vedanta community, a great honor.

This teaching is called the discrimination between the subject—the seer and the seen— the objects. It establishes the understanding that what you see—meaning experience—including all mystic experiences, are ‘not self.’ The one who sees them is you, the self. He says that you will realize who you are, meaning understand that you are the self, when you have separated the seer, you, from what you experience.

One thing I admire about Ramana was his refusal, unlike many modern teachers, to cook up a fancy personal teaching on the subject of self realization. His statements were in harmony with the scriptures on Yoga or Vedanta. Even though Ramana died a half century ago, he was a very ‘modern’ sage, if you consider the fact that the Vedic spiritual tradition is thousands of years old.

Why did he refuse to do so? Because no modern teaching is required. The whole enlightenment business was worked out a long time ago. Enlightenment is a simple understanding of the self and its relationship to experience, the ego- experiencer and the forms the ego experiences. In a nutshell, it is the understanding that while the forms depend on the self, the self does not depend on the forms. This freedom from attachment to experience is called moksha, liberation. It is not something you obtain. It is something you are. The operative words are, ‘has been removed.’ What kind of removal is it? Does the complete destruction of the unconscious tendencies, vasanas, allow you to gain the self? Or is enlightenment the removal of the notion that the world is separate from the self?

In Ramana’s teachings you will find both ideas. The word world is actually a psychological term. It does not mean the physical world. The physical world, in so far as it is actually physical, is the self. It is impersonal. No individual created it and no individual is going to remove it. But the world that Ramana says must be removed, is the psychological projections that make up an individual’s personal world. These projections are based on a belief that the self is separate, inadequate or incomplete.

Ramana’s teaching is not Ramana’s teaching. It is called vichara, inquiry, and goes back several thousand years. The purpose of inquiry is knowledge, not the physical removal of the mind. If he had been teaching Yoga as a means of liberation, he would not have encouraged inquiry because Yoga is committed to the experience of samadhi, not understanding that one is the self.

Interviewer: This is interesting. I never heard it stated this way before. But I thought the goal was sahaja samadhi.

James: Contrary to conventional wisdom, the samadhis are not the final goal. Sama means equal and dhi is a contracted form of buddhi, intellect. So it means a mind that values everything equally. Sahaja means continuous and natural, so it is a mind that has continuous non-dual vision. Perhaps you can gain this kind of mind by the long and difficult practice of Astanga Yoga. I don’t know. But why go to all this trouble, when you actually have this samadhi naturally all the time, without doing a lick of work.

Interviewer: Oh, how is that?

James: As the self. Self realization is not continuous because the self is out of time, but it is natural to the self. It is your nature.

Anyway, no samadhi is equivalent to enlightenment, because samadhis are only states of mind or no mind, no mind being a state of mind. Samadhi helps purify the mind by burning subconscious tendencies and is a great aid to inquiry, but if you remove the mind, how will you make an inquiry? Who will make an inquiry? You make an inquiry with the mind for the mind, so it can shed its ignorance and no longer trouble you. The mind is a very useful God given instrument. Would God have given us a mind if He had intended for it be destroyed? And, in fact, Yoga isn’t about killing the mind either, because how will you experience a samadhi if you don’t have a mind? The mind is the instrument of experience.

If you argue that you are aiming at nirvikalpa samadhi where there is no mind, fine. Unfortunately, a fly landing on your nose can bring you out of nirvikalpa samadhi, not that there is anyone there to come out of it. And when the you who wasn’t there does come back, as I just mentioned, you are just as self ignorant as you were before. Why? Because you were not there in the samadhi to understand that the samadhi is you. If you are the samadhi, you will have it all the time, because you have you all the time. Therefore, there will be no anxiety about making it continuous or permanent.

Interviewer: OK. You’re saying that samadhi is not the goal, that it is just the means?

James: Yes. Not the means. A means. There are many other ways to purify the mind. Misunderstanding this teaching is perhaps responsible for more despair, confusion and downright frustration for seekers, than any other. It is commonly believed that all the vasanas need to be physically eradicated for enlightenment to happen. And many people believe that Ramana had achieved that extraordinary state. It may be extraordinary, but it is not enlightenment.

If you study Ramana’s life, you will see that by and large he was a very regular guy, head in the clouds, feet firmly planted on the earth. He walked, talked, cooked, read and listened to the radio. I love the story of him returning to the ashram at one in the afternoon, to see a sign saying the ashram was closed from noon until two pm. What did he do? He sat down outside and waited for it to open. If he did not have a mind, who or what was doing all these things? No vasanas means no mind, because the vasanas are the cause of the mind. How did he go about the business of life? So I think we need to look at the word removal in a different way.

Ramana was called a jnani, a knower of the self, because he had removed the idea of himself as a doer—it is called sarva karma sannyasa—which happens when you realize you are the self. Or you realize you are the self when you realize you are not the doer. ‘Not the doer’ means the self. It doesn’t mean that the ego becomes a non-doer. The ego is always a doer. As the self, he understood that while the few non-binding vasanas he had left were dependent on him, he was not dependent on them. How can a thought or a feeling affect the self? For a person who thinks he or she is the doer, allowing the vasanas to express or not, is not an option. Actions happen uncontrollably, because the ego is pressurized to act in a certain way by the vasanas. They happen without the will of an enlightened person too, but acting on them is entirely elective.

So the removal that Ramana talks about, is only in terms of understanding. He often uses another metaphor which he borrowed from Vedanta, the snake and the rope. In the twilight, a weary thirsty traveler mistook the well rope attached to a bucket for a snake and recoiled in fear. When he got his bearings and his fear subsided, he realized that the snake was actually only the rope. There was no reason to take a stick and beat the snake to death, which is equivalent to trying to destroy the mind, because the snake was only a misperception. When he calmed down and regained his wits, he inquired into the snake and realized that it was just a rope. And in that realization the snake was removed.

Interviewer: My understanding is that he meant the removal of all the attachments to our conditioned mind.

James: That was because he understood he was the self. The way you lose attachment all at once is to understand you are the self.

Interviewer: It is often called ‘a constant experience.’

James: Sure, but the self is ‘constant experience’ anyway. Or put it this way, if this is a non-dual reality and this reality is the self, then each and every experience is the self. So nobody is short of self experience, the ignorant and the enlightened alike. The problem is that very few people understand that everything is the self. So they seek all these incredible self experiences.

Interviewer: The self is a constant experience?

Ram: No, the self is ‘constant experience’ if there is such a thing. In fact ‘constant experience’ is a contradiction with reference to the self, although experience is constant in the apparent reality. The Self becomes experience, but it does not sacrifice its nature as a non-doing, non-experiencing witness to do it. This means you are free of your experiences. Let’s put it a better way: experience is the self but the self is not experience.

Interviewer: When one says constant experience, would that mean remembering the self constantly?

James: Remembrance is helpful up to a point. But you can never make remembrance constant. Knowledge is constant. When self knowledge takes place, you no longer chase experience, thinking it will complete you. Remembering is a mental activity that implies forgetting. Once you know you are the self, there is nothing to remember any more. How can you remember what you are? You are the one who is doing the remembering. You are prior to the act of remembrance. You cannot forget, because you are always present. If you were somewhere else or someone else, you could forget.

Interviewer: The next question Ramana is asked is “Will there not be realization of the Self, even while the world is there (taken as real)? He replies, “There will not be.”

James: If I do not take the world to be real, I will not seek happiness in it. When I seek happiness in the world, I expect it to fulfill me but there is no lasting fulfillment in the world because the things in the world do not last. I want the objects that give me happiness to last when things are going well and I expect them not to last when things are going poorly. But life does not care how things are going for me.

Ramana was a wise man because he removed his self ignorance. I don’t think he sat there all day, trying to break his attachments. I would think that because he was so young when he woke up, his vasanas were not entrenched. Indian culture was pretty pure in those days and he came from a decent family, so he did not have deep negative attachments, like sex and money and so on.

Interviewer: Yes, when you think of a teenage boy sitting for long hours in samadhi in the temple, he must have been taken care of, so the people there recognized him, to some extent. But how about him? Would he really know what is happening to him? He never read any spiritual books, never had a teacher and is sitting there for hours.

James: That’s a good question. He probably did know because there were mahatmas running about, role models if you will. So he knew how they lived, and probably got help from the sadhus whom he came in contact with. The Indian spiritual scene is a vast network. Word of someone’s enlightenment gets around very fast. Many great men must have shared certain things that would be helpful. After all, he was sitting at the hub of one of India’s most holy sites, Arunachala, which has been attracting mahatmas for thousands of years.

I stayed with a great mahatma in Kerala, Swami Abhedananda, who was a guru’s guru. Many enlightened people came to see him and he would invite them up to his room and I’m sure everyone benefitted. Many of the Westerners who come to India, even those who have been here a long time and who have been only associated with the ‘export’ gurus, often have peculiar notions about saints like Ramana. They believe that he was a kind of lonely figure, the only one of his kind, head and shoulders above the crowd, lived in a cave like a hermit who sat in silence most of the time and didn’t have a social life. He probably was quite distant and emotionally reserved like most Tamil men, but he had love in spades and if you have love, people come and give you what you need.

And then, too, you have to understand that his sense of himself being the self never left him, so he wouldn’t be that concerned about his emotional needs. And finally, self knowledge is not something that you have any doubt about, if it is the real thing. You just know.

Interviewer: Did he know the Self?

James: Yes. He may have thought of it as an object at first, which is natural. It’s hard to tell and it really doesn’t matter, although the Ramana devotees bristle at the notion that the reason he sat in the caves alone, was to erase whatever sense of duality there was left in his understanding. To me that only adds to his glory, if it is true. But then enlightenment will only come to a very mature person, regardless of his age. Usually, the self appears first as an object and then, keeping the mind on the self and repeatedly inquiring into it, the bedrock understanding eventually comes that one is the self that one is enquiring into. This is certainly what he taught. And he taught it with authority which is based on personal experience. But it really doesn’t matter because he realized who he was and was a fine example of a realized soul, unlike so many of these modern people claiming enlightenment.

The problem of language comes in at this level. He uses the language of experience more than he does the language of identity. If you read the statement describing his enlightenment experience in the temple, you get the sense that he knew he was it, perhaps a little vaguely in the beginning, but more clearly as time passed. Again, it is very difficult to tell from the words.

It is probably not correct to say that he knew the self. It is more accurate to say he knew he was the self. That is the meaning of the word Ramana.

Interviewer: That seems like a very subtle distinction.

James: It is, but there is a world of difference. To say you ‘know the self’ means that you see the self as an object, as something separate. To say that you are the self, means that there is no duality in your experience or understanding of yourself. Let’s talk about his famous enlightenment experience now. I think it can shed light on this subject of what knowing the self actually is.

Interviewer: Yes. It’s right here. I copied it from the board in the Mother’s Shrine.

“I felt I was going to die and that I had to solve the problem myself, there and then. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally without forming the words. ‘Now death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the inquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape so that neither the word ‘I’ nor any other word could be uttered. ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘The body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body am I dead? Is the body ‘I?’ It is silent and inert, but I could feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means that I am the deathless spirit.” All this was not a dull thought. It flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought process.

‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that “I”. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or ‘Self’ focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends will all other states. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else I was still centered on the ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.”

James: First, this is a typical self experience. It, or something like it, happens somewhere to someone every day. Remember that lovely piece of writing by Wren Lewis that you gave me—the guy who got poisoned in Thailand and had what is now called a ‘near death experience?’

Interviewer: Yes, that would be another interesting one to talk about.

James: It certainly would. My point is that there is a vast literature of these kinds of experiences. First, let’s take the statement, “the shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards.”

The mind was previously facing the world. Now it is looking inwards.

Next we have Ramana’s reaction to the experience. This is important because it reveals the nature of Ramana’s mind very clearly. Ordinarily, when we have intense experiences involving great pleasure or great pain, our emotions take over and cloud our appreciation of the experience. We either get so frightened we cannot report what happened accurately, or we get so ecstatic we cannot report what happened accurately. But Ramana stayed cool as a cucumber. He says, “Now death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.”

I mentioned earlier that Vedanta is concerned with meaning. Here you have an inquiring mind, one not fascinated by the experience, seeking to understand the experience. Although the majority of the people coming to Tiruvannamalai are experience happy, quite a few have this kind of mind to some degree. They want to know. But very few have it to the degree that Ramana did. This shows that he was a lover of knowledge.

And using logic he draws the right conclusion, “This body dies.” Already we can see by implication that he knows he is other than the body. He has completely objectified it. Then he dramatizes it ‘to give greater reality to the inquiry.’ The rest of his musings up to ‘it is silent and inert’ are further confirmation of his understanding that he is not the body.

Next we come to the realization of the self. This is the positive side—what happens when the world is negated. He says, “but I could feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it.” The word personality is quite interesting. I don’t know if this was an accurate translation of Ramana’s words. But what he probably meant was the jivatman, the self embodied as an individual. I’m sorry to use these fancy Sanskrit terms, but there is simply no English equivalent. The Self is unembodied, but it is capable of embodiment. It is called the jivatman. OK, we can call it the soul or the person, but it is not quite right because it throws up too many imprecise associations.

So now he is aware of the dead body and the Subtle Body, what is called the personality, and ‘even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it.’ You see the whole structure of the self in this experience. Then, he concludes correctly, “So I am spirit transcending the body.” He has answered the ‘Who am I?” question, which up to this point he had never even considered.

And then the icing on the cake; he describes self knowledge. “All this was not a dull thought. It flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought process.”

When you have any experience, the knowledge of that experience arises in the mind. This knowledge needs to be grasped, owned, if you will. In this case, he witnessed the knowledge ‘flashing vividly through me as living truth.’ This should quiet the people who say that the mind has to be dead for enlightenment. The operative words are ‘almost without thought process.’ This means there was thought.

Interviewer: So how does this relate to liberation?

James: Many people have these kinds of experiences, but do not realize that they are ‘spirit transcending body.’ It is this knowledge that is called liberation. Why is it liberation? Because thinking you are the body is a huge problem. It makes the world and everything in it seem to be real. But to the self, the world appears as a kind of dream, so all the experiences you have in it cannot bind you. In the next statement he addresses this issue of what is real. He says, “‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that ‘I’”. This is knowledge. The ‘I’ is real. The body/mind entity is not ‘taken to be real.’

Interviewer: Surely, if it is the self, it has to be real, doesn’t it?

James: That’s a good point. There is a statement in Vedanta that says ‘Brahma satyam, jagan mithya.’ It means the limitless Self is real and the world—the body/mind—is apparently real. Real is defined in spiritual science as what never changes, what lasts forever. So experience and the body don’t fit that definition. But experience is not actually unreal either. It has a peculiar status, neither completely real, nor completely unreal. There is a famous Vedantic text, the Vacarambana Sruti that explains how it is. I won’t digress into it because we are just getting to the meat of Ramana’s experience.

There is one more thing to understand in this passage. Ramana is not quite through with the process he’s experiencing. He is at the intermediate stage. Before this experience came, and he realized he was the self, he thought that the body was real. But this experience has shown him that with reference to the self, the body is not real. It is important that he completely negate his belief in the reality of the body. So he has to say that it isn’t real. Then later, when the knowledge that he is the self is completely firm, he can take the body back as real or apparently real, because it is non-separate from him. The only actual problem with the body is the belief that it is an independent entity and that the ‘I’ depends on it. But Ramana realized that the ‘I’ was free of the body. He says—and this is very important—‘all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that ‘I’.

People who are ignorant that they are the immortal self, what you would call materialists, believe that the ‘I’ is centered on the body, that it is the body that gives life to the ‘I’. But scripture and direct experience reveal that the body is centered on the ‘I.’ In other words, the ‘I’ is the living principle and the body is just matter. Ramana realized that fact.

The next statement is very difficult to understand. In a way, we would have been much happier if Ramana had packed up his meditation carpet and stole silently away into the night. He is the self and he knows it. Shouldn’t that be the end? But as usual, life always has another surprise in store. He says, “From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or ‘Self’ focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination.”

Which ‘I’ did what? If I’m the ‘I’, the one without a second, how do we get two ‘I’s here? Has Ramana lost his realization? How can the Self be fascinated with anything? It would only be fascinated if it felt there was something to experience or know. But we know that it is whole and complete, lacking nothing, so why is it acting as if it weren’t? Furthermore, if it is self aware, it is already focused on itself.

This experience was not the end. In fact, it was just the beginning of Ramana’s spiritual journey. He has just become self realized, but he has not become enlightened, if we take these words at face value.

Interviewer: What do you mean by that?

James: The last paragraph shows clearly that he thinks of the self as an object and that he sees himself as separate from it. He is experiencing it, no doubt—it would remain as a permanent experience—but he has yet to see himself solely as the non-dual self. He does. He gets there. We do not know when, probably sometime during his meditation phase when he was living in the caves, but he gains the last little bit of knowledge.

Interviewer: How do you know?

James: The language. Let’s take the language at face value, although it is very risky to trust a translator. Ramana was a very straightforward person. He says, “Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.” So the natural question is “who is absorbed in what?” Was the self absorbed in the self or was Ramana absorbed in the self? We understand what he means a couple of sentences later when he says, “I was centered on the ‘I’.” And one gets the impression that the first ‘I’ was different from the second. This is a statement of the self realization phase of the spiritual journey. If there was no duality left, why doesn’t he just say, “I, the self, was centered on myself.” This is how it is in non- duality, not that the self is centered on anything. The ‘I’ is self knowing by nature and requires no centering.

And it fits in with the self inquiry that Ramana taught, which was based on his own experience and backed by scripture. One of the definitions of self inquiry that Ramana gives is “Holding the mind on the self is inquiry.” So here he is, a young boy of seventeen who did not have a clue about the self, with his mind fixed permanently on the Self.

Interviewer: So what is the next phase? How does it happen?

James: You keep watching the Self. You stay alert, which is not hard because the self is very beautiful. And the more you watch it the more it sets you to thinking. You become fascinated. The words Ramana uses are ‘a powerful fascination.’ When you are in this phase, you need a cave or something like it. You do not want to be in the world. If you stay in the world your connection might be broken.

You fall in love. When you are in love you do not stop thinking. One thing that we need to point out here is very important. You know how I have been saying that this belief that the mind has to stop completely is not true, that it does happen but it need not happen, that having a dead mind can be a big problem?

Interviewer: Yes.

James: Well, it is clear by Ramana’s own admission that his mind had not stopped completely. He says, “Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music…” This state he is in is savikalpa samadhi to use the Yogic term. It is a state of clear seeing in which vikalpas— thoughts— arise and fall. But the thoughts do not obscure the vision of the self. This is very important. Ramana says so.

Anyway, where was I? Yes…love. You fall in love. When you are in love you do not stop thinking. On the contrary, you think more; you want to know where your beloved is, what he or she is doing. This thinking is inquiry. Ramana already had the knowledge from his experience to guide him in his inquiry. He knew about himself and the “I beyond the body.”

You are getting it all straight about who you are and what your relationship is to this beautiful being. And then one day something happens. We cannot say when. It just happens, if you stay focused on the beloved. There is an Aha! and at that moment, the you that was looking at the self becomes the self. There is actually no becoming. You were it all along. The becoming is a recognition, a knowing. But the becoming changes your perspective. You are no longer the individual looking in at the self, awareness, you are awareness looking out at the individual. And what do you know? That awareness and the individual are one. Or in the words of scripture, “Tat Tvam Asi.” That (self) you are. Formulated from the self’s perspective, the words are “Aham Brahmasmi,” I am limitless. Ramana the form is limited. Ramana the Self is unlimited.

This is what Vedanta calls enlightenment. From that point on, you do not abide in the Self, you abide as the Self. You have only one non-dual identity.

Interviewer: That’s a very important analysis that will help many people who are nearing the end of their spiritual journeys. Now let’s consider this. At the end of his book “Self Inquiry” he says, “He who is thus endowed with a mind that has become subtle, and who has the experience of the Self is called a Jivanmukta.”

James: Here’s a vindication from Ramana’s mouth of what I have been saying about the mind. The mind does not have to be killed. When enough gross vasanas are exhausted, the mind becomes subtle. It still has thoughts, but the thoughts do not unbalance it. This kind of mind comes about through simple restrained living and clear thinking. It is capable of Self realization.

But I have to take issue with this statement. Experience of the self is not enlightenment. When is the self not experienced? It may be self realization but it is not enlightenment, for the simple reason that it implies that there is an experiencer other than the self. It is enlightenment when the experiencer realizes that he or she is what is being experienced i.e. the self. Enlightenment is knowledge, not experience of anything. People erroneously believe that enlightenment is gaining some permanent incredible experience of the self. But a jivanmukta is free of everything, especially experience. A jivanmukta is the self.

Jivanmukta simply means someone who has realized he or she is the self and has no sense of duality.

Interviewer: “It is the state of jivanmukta that is referred to as the attributeless Brahman and as Turiya. When even the subtle mind gets resolved.”

James: Well, this is not a correct understanding of jivanmukta. In the first place, it is not a ‘state.’ States are experience-based and come and go. Attributeless Brahman would not have any states in it, nor would it be a state. A state is an attribute. Attributeless and Brahman are two words that describe awareness, the self. It has no attributes and is limitless, which is the meaning of the word Brahman. The resolution of the mind is simply a resolution in understanding. The mind understands that it is the self and that makes it peaceful, and finishes it as an independent entity. It does not mean that the mind dies, never to think a thought again.

Interviewer: “and when one is immersed in the ocean of bliss and has become one with it without any differentiated existence, one is called a Videhamukta. It is the state of Videhamukti that is referred to as the transcendent Turiya. This is the final goal.” So is he saying this is enlightenment?

James: That’s the way it seems. He is describing enlightenment in the language of experience or Yoga. If you analyze that language you can find the problem. He is experiencing limitless bliss, yet he is talking about it being a goal; something to be gained. But in the language of identity, it is something that you are.

We have to result to linguistic analysis because Ramana is dead and we have no idea if the translator knew what Ramana meant and used the correct words. Even if Ramana was speaking to us directly it would be possible to misunderstand the meaning, unless we knew the self. The only way to get the proper idea of the meaning of these words is to hold them up to scripture and see how well they fit. This will be a useful interview for seekers, but it will not make me a lot of friends among the Ramana devotees, because Ramana has attained the status of deity of late and you cannot have your gods with feet of clay. Ramana was a realized soul and a human being of the highest caliber. But we only have his words to go on, and I don’t want this to be my opinion on the teachings of Ramana, although it will certainly be taken as such. My idea is to discuss Ramana in light of the Science of Self Inquiry. Mind you, I am not saying that Ramana was not enlightened. But he was not a scriptural master and spoke to many individuals at different stages of their spiritual journey, and did not issue a ‘big picture’ statement about his teachings, one that would resolve the apparent contradictions.

Let’s pick apart this statement a little more. In the first place, what do the words immersed in mean? These are experiential words. They indicate a person having a particular kind of experience, in this case bliss. The next words of interest are ‘has become one with it.” What do they mean? What kind of becoming is it? If the becoming is experiential, the experience of bliss stops because the one who was experiencing it is no more. In oneness, non-duality, the subject and object necessary for experience are not present. So if somebody is going to lose the experience of ‘the ocean of bliss,’ why will they merge into the self? It doesn’t make sense.

This is why the Bhakti tradition scoffs at the liberation tradition. The bhaktas say, ‘Why would I want to be God, when I can experience God all the time?” It’s a valid point. However, it doesn’t take into account the fact that you can be God and experience God. There is only a contradiction when you have a flawed understanding of the nature of God and the world.

But what if this becoming is the coming of understanding? By understanding I mean the recognition that the subject, the mind-ego— the one experiencing the bliss— and the object, the bliss, are one. Bliss is a common but inaccurate word because of its experiential implications. One way to describe this understanding experientially, is that it is a shift during which the foreground— the ego—which has been experiencing the self in the form of bliss, becomes the background and the self—which has been the object of experience—becomes the foreground, as I mentioned. So now the ‘I’ is the Self looking out at the ego, looking in at it. And when this shift takes place there is an instant recognition that ‘I’ is the Self. One’s identification of ‘I’ with the ego-mind ends once and for all. From that point on there is no foreground or background, no in or out. The mind is purified of these concepts.

Videhamukti exoterically is usually taken to mean liberation when the body dies. Why would you have to wait until the body dies to realize the self, since the self is always present when you are alive? This liberation at death is just a belief. Death is just a belief. The actual meaning is ‘freedom from the body.’ ‘Vi’ means without and ‘dehi’ means the body and ‘mukti’ means liberation. So it is not an experiential term; it is a statement of knowledge. It means that when you realize that you are not the body, you are free. The realization that one is not the body, if it is a hard and fast knowledge, is enlightenment. We can include the mind-ego in the word ‘body’ too because it is a body, albeit a subtle one. Body means embodied. This experience and the understanding that arises with it, means that from this point on, you are no longer embodied. The bodies are in the self but the self is not in the bodies. This is why it is called liberation.

Interviewer: You have always been the self; it’s like a recognition.

James: That’s right.

Interviewer: It’s an embracing.

James: Yes, one owns it.

Interviewer: It’s the moment the wave sinks into the ocean. It’s when the wave stops being this wave.

James: Yes, but—here’s that famous ‘but’—the wave can be there. If there is a wave in the ocean, you know that it is not just an independent wave; it is the ocean as well. It won’t be a wave unless it is the ocean. The wave depends on the ocean, but the ocean does not depend on the wave. So even if there is a wave, it has no effect on the ocean. Enlightenment does not destroy dualistic experience. One just realizes that experience depends on me, the self, but that I am always free of experience. Acting in the world with this knowledge is quite different from acting in this world without it.

Interviewer: Right. What you are saying now is very important. It’s completely contrary to what I have been led to believe. It’s a vital point. I can remember talking about this elsewhere. Recently, a woman came to me quite disturbed because she could not do anything about her mind. She had the idea she must kill her mind completely.

James: All that so called teaching does is deflate people; it doesn’t give them encouragement and is patently untrue. Mind you, you need to get some mind out of the way—your neuroses, your binding likes and dislikes—and for that you need to do some work. The mind is not the problem, the mess you have made of it is. That’s why Ramana encourages spiritual practice. This is what Vedanta says too. The mind needs to be quiet, but that does not mean that the mind has to disappear completely. It may disappear momentarily, but it always reconstitutes itself.

If self realization only happens when the mind is non-existent, then the self and the mind enjoy exactly the same order of reality, like sickness and health. When you are healthy you are not sick. The scriptures say that this is not so. Experience shows that it is not so.

The self is knowable directly when the mind is functioning. The self doesn’t need any knowledge. The mind needs it and to get it, it has to be functioning clearly. But when the mind is overcome with heavy activity and dullness, it is impossible to know the self.

Interviewer: So the mind does experience the Self, then? This seems contrary to what you were saying before.

James: That’s good, picking up on an apparent contradiction. The answer is yes and no. What is experienced is the reflection of the self in a pure mind. The pure mind is like a highly polished mirror and the self illumines it, so it is experienceable there. There can be no direct experience, because the mind and the self enjoy different orders of reality. The self is subtler than the mind. Ramana defines inquiry as holding the mind on the self, which means keeping your attention on the reflection of the self in a pure mind.

You hold your attention on it to get knowledge. When you get knowledge, you can relax. You are trying to figure out what it is and what it has to do with you. And if you do not involve yourself with the modifications arising in the mind, there will eventually come a point when there is the ‘Aha!’ And that ‘Aha!’ is simply the recognition that what I am experiencing is me, not some consciousness other than my own.

When you grasp the knowledge “I am the self,” you are no longer excluding yourself from the experience of the self. As long as you are experiencing the self, you are excluding yourself from the self. You are saying ‘I am here, the self is there and I am experiencing it.’

Interviewer: Ramana makes a strong statement when asked, ‘Will there not be realization when the world is there (taken to be real)?’ He says, ‘There will not be.”

James: I think we spoke about this before. The statement means it will seem to be real if you see the world as an independent reality. They put the phrase ‘taken to be real’ in because ‘is there’ makes it seem that the world has to be physically not seen, for realization to happen. One might believe that perceptually, experientially the world is going to disappear. It’s a common belief among spiritual types.

Interviewer: That’s right. And that makes it even worse. It makes it scary.

James: They think that if it hasn’t disappeared they aren’t enlightened.

Interviewer: And they also think that the enlightened are walking around in some sort of deep grey void.

James: Maybe that’s what all these zombie types that congregate at the spiritual centers are doing. Maybe they are the only really enlightened ones. Language is very important, because these people are getting their ideas from somewhere. Failure to understand explains why so many seekers do not become finders. There are many people in the spiritual world who would be classified as self realized, according to the stages of enlightenment mentioned above. This is what Ramana calls antar mukha, turning the mind inward, watching or realizing or experiencing the Self.

But, rightly, these people are not satisfied and continue to entertain doubts about their state. Usually, the doubt has to do with making the state permanent which is impossible, since the person and his pure mind is still in the realm of time. In other words, there is always the realistic fear that the experience will not last. And even though they are so close to enlightenment experientially, it still eludes them.

And the reason? Because they are prisoners of the language of experience. The language we use indicates the way we think. And at this stage, when the experience is more or less continually available, the only barrier to converting the experience to a ‘permanent’ state, not that enlightenment is a state, is the way one thinks. What needs to happen at this point, is that the individual needs to convert the language of experience to the language of identity. The language of identity states that the experiencer and what is being experienced are not two separate things, that they are in fact the same. When any object is experienced the knowledge of that object arises simultaneously in the intellect. And if the mind in which the reflection of the self appears is pure, the knowledge of the self will arise with it in the intellect. This knowledge is in the form of an insight, an akandakara vritti, that I am the whole and complete actionless awareness that I am experiencing. Let’s recall Ramana’s statement of this situation. “All this was not a dull thought. It flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought process.”

If the person is accustomed to thinking of the self as an object, he or she will be reluctant to surrender the experiencer, and the self will continue to remain as an experienced object. The surrender is in terms of letting go of the idea of oneself as an experiencer and embracing one’s limitless identity. This is the ‘destruction of the mind’ that yogis talk about. This phrase ‘destruction of the mind’ is very unfortunate. It should be ‘destruction of ignorance.’ The destruction of ignorance does not destroy the mind.

Were the person to be trained in the language of identity, this problem would not arise. In fact the person would immediately recognize the content of the experience as ‘I’ and that would finish the work. Clinging to experience is hanging on to the container and sacrificing the content. It is like a person pouring the coke out of the bottle and drinking the bottle. We can throw away the container. It is non-essential. We need the contents, the self.

The whole of Vedanta can be reduced to one simple equation found in the Upanishads ‘You are that.’ ‘That’ is the self and ‘you’ is the self in the form of the experiencer and the verb are indicates the identity between the two.

Interviewer: Probably that is where Interviewer is struggling right now, existentially speaking. Because I think that’s probably true of me. I see everything as an experience.

James: That’s what I’ve observed. You describe everything to do with you in terms of what’s happening. I believe that ‘Nothing ever happened’ teaching of Papaji’s is meant to neutralize the belief that what happens has something to do with you.

Experience isn’t bossing me. I’m bossing it. Without me it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. That’s freedom. I don’t have to erase it. I just take it as I please. This is why bad days are good days for the enlightened. They can see themselves in everything. Looking to experience for validation is the tail wagging the dog. We’re trying to set things straight and get the dog to wag the tail. That’s how it is. Dogs wag their tails, not the other way around. Yoga says that if you get this experience, nirvikalpa samadhi, then you are enlightened. Vedanta says that you are the self, no matter what experience you are having.

Interviewer: Here’s another of Ramana’s statements on self inquiry that I think is very interesting. “How could this search be done in books? All the texts say that in order to gain liberation, you must make the mind quiet. Once this has been understood, there is no need for endless reading. In order to quieten the mind, one has only to enquire within oneself what oneself is.”

James: This statement may lead a person to conclude that no scriptural information would be useful in Self inquiry. But you can’t make an inquiry without knowledge. In fact he supports scripture with the statement ‘all the texts say…’ You can’t perform inquiry without the knowledge that I am not the body, mind, etc. You can’t just sit there without any information like a Dodo and say, “Uh…Who am I? Duh…Hey God…who am I?” This is not going to work, even if the heavens are rent asunder with the booming voice of God”…”YOU ARE PURE CONSCIOUSNESS!!!”

Interviewer: Ha Ha Ha!

James: Even if He tells you to your face, you will have no way to evaluate this information. “Uh? I am? What does that mean?” I need knowledge. I need to know how who I am relates to my body and mind and the world around. It has to be contextualized, or it is useless. Scripture does an excellent job of contextualizing the ‘I’, telling you what it means to be the self. And anyway, Ramana is only dissing ‘endless reading.’ In fact, you should not read scripture. It should be taught to you. Then you should reflect on it until its truths are assimilated. Nothing, except perhaps inspiration, will come of just reading.

Interviewer: I’ve mentioned several times that we should talk about self inquiry as a practice, and I came across an interesting question and answer that addresses this issue. Someone asks Ramana “What is the method of practice?” and he replies, “As the Self of a person who tries to attain Self-realization is not different from him and as there is nothing other than or superior to him to be attained by him, Self-realization being only the realization of one’s own nature, the seeker of liberation realizes, without doubts or misconceptions, his real nature by distinguishing the eternal from the transient and never swerves from this natural state. This is known as the practice of knowledge. This is the inquiry leading to Self-realization.”

He seems to be saying that self inquiry is more than just asking “Who am I?”

James: That’s right. From speaking with people who come here looking for self- realization, I’ve learned that many think all one has to do is say “Who am I?” and somehow the answer will be revealed. But this isn’t how it is. The fact is that the nature of the ‘I’ is well known. If you have a doubt, just read the Upanishads or Shankara or any Vedantic text. It is very clear. Even these Neo-Advaita teachers have it right on this issue. There are many words that indicate the self and there is a brilliant proven methodology that can destroy your self ignorance.

There is a peculiar belief that the self is some mysterious unknown presence, only apprehended through mystic means, about which one can say nothing. Unspeakable. Indefinable. Beyond words, etc. But actually, the self is the only thing one can speak about with precision and certainty because it is the only reality. All the rest of it, what people think of as real, cannot really be described because it is neither completely real nor is it completely unreal.

In this statement Ramana uses perhaps the most common word to indicate the nature of the Self. He says it is eternal. This distinguishes it from the body-mind- ego complex and the world around, which is constantly changing. We think of the body as real, but when you look into the body you cannot come up with anything substantial. It keeps resolving into subtler and subtler elements until it disappears altogether. But no matter how much you analyze it, you cannot reduce the self to anything else. It cannot be dissolved.

Interviewer: So inquiry is not a matter of getting knowledge then, it is a matter of applying it?

James: Yes, Ramana says that inquiry is separating the real from the unreal, the eternal from the transient. So it is a practice. Before you can practice you need to know what is real and what isn’t. Twelve centuries before Ramana, Shankar uses the exact same words, “practice of knowledge (jnanabyasa)” in Atma Bodh and elsewhere to describe this process. And it was already part of the tradition when Shankar came along. The practice is called ‘viveka’ and it is the proven method of liberation.

Interviewer: It seems quite intellectual. How does it work?

James: It isn’t ‘intellectual’ in the pejorative sense that one hears the word used today. But it definitely relies on an astute use of the intellect. There is this notion that Ramana taught in silence and that only by sitting in silence, not by using the mind in any way, can one realize the self. This is patently untrue. Here Ramana is not recommending silence. Mind you, meditation, sitting in silence, is a very useful practice, but Ramana himself makes it very clear that in self inquiry, the intellect is the instrument of realization.

In his description of his own awakening, one can see that he was obviously conscious and thinking and discriminating. And there is no reason why one cannot think when the mind is silent. In fact in that state, conscious thinking is beautiful, a real joy. There is even a yogic term for it, savikalpa samdhi. It means samadhi with thought. Vikalpas are thoughts.

Interviewer: This is quite surprising The common notion is that the intellect needs to be shut down for the Self to be realized.

James: That is the view of Yoga. Controlling the mind is useful to prepare the mind for self realization, but it is not tantamount to self realization. We need to remember that the mind is transient and therefore unreal. So how are you going to control something that is non-eternal? The one who is trying to change, the ego, is non-eternal and what is meant not to change is non-eternal. Therefore, how can there be any permanent change? Even if there is change as a result of your efforts, you will have to keep up the effort to keep the changes operational. So you find yourself having to do all these things to be what you want to be. This is always the problem when you try to change the mind or stop the mind. Inquiry is not a question of controlling the mind. It is a question of observing the mind.

Interviewer: So how does this discrimination work?

James: Well, first we need to know that not any Tom, Dick or Harry can just practice inquiry. In the first line of the very next paragraph Ramana says, “This is suitable only for the ripe soul.” You need to be prepared. Prepared means mature, indifferent to the blandishments the world has to offer. And secondly, one needs a burning desire to be free of his or her own mind. This is different from saying that one needs a dead or different mind. The mind is going to be with you in one form or another, whether you like it or not, so the only sensible question is how to live happily with it. When you realize what the self is and that you are it, you see that you have always been free of the mind.

Discrimination or inquiry is the moment to moment practice of the understanding that the experiencer and its experience is not real and that awareness is real.

It works like this: whenever an impulse to do something, possess something, feel something or change something comes up in the mind, as it does all the time, one does not just mindlessly set out to manifest the desired result. Instead, you think “What lasting benefit will I get by doing, getting, experiencing this? Will I be more, better, different? Will I gain lasting happiness or will I still be what I am?” Assuming that the one doing the practice is the ego, which it would necessarily be, will that person be any wiser with reference to his or her own self by doing/thinking/feeling/experiencing something? And, the answer is always no. True, you may be wiser with reference to a specific idea, but will you actually become whole and complete and free of your mind by doing what you are contemplating doing? For example, you may invest in the stock market and lose a bundle because the corporate fat cats are cooking the books. So you learn to not trust people’s word concerning money, but are you fundamentally different because you don’t have the money you once had? Or are you fundamentally different because you are more wary? You are still what you are.

Interviewer: So self transformation is not Self realization.

James: It may be useful to clean up your ego a bit before you set out to set it free, but the very fact that you are trying to change means that you are not free.

Interviewer: A friend and I rented a house we found on the internet recently from a woman who was going on vacation and when we moved, I noticed a collage on the wall celebrating her recent spiritual awakening. And pasted on the collage were different sized words from different periodicals that said, “One day I got tired of being the same, so I made the BIG JUMP.”

James: What you have here is a spiritual awakening, but not Self realization. This is a person who has been stuck with some bad values and consequently caught up in some unhealthy habits ,who finally gets the courage to confront herself and make changes in the way she lives. And this is very good, an important first step. But this is not self realization. Awakening is not self realization, although during an awakening you may come to experience and understand that there is a self.

Interviewer: This is an important distinction, I think.

James: Yes it is. This experience is not self realization because the one who landed is the same one who made the jump. Once the proper values and good habits are in place, a new problem will surface: is this all? Because you haven’t addressed the fundamental problem, you have just corrected some karmic mistakes the ego made. I’m not saying that spiritual awakenings aren’t good, but once you are awake to how foolish you are and the possibility of getting out of it, then you can perhaps start to seek wisdom, which at some point will entail asking who made the jump.

Now, if Ramana is saying that the self never changes and you are the self and the self is endless bliss, then you will never want to jump out of yourself. So what we have in the case of this woman is an ego changing itself. And no matter how much the ego changes for the better, it is never going to change into the self. When you realize that you are the self, it doesn’t matter to you what the ego is. You accept it as it is. You understand that it wouldn’t be the way it is if it could help it and you let it be. Or you work on it dispassionately, if that is your karma. When you no longer see yourself as the ego, it will gradually become more pure and radiant but it will never become the self. So thinking that you are going to become different is not the way to go.

Interviewer: I have another teaching that I would like to discuss. Ramana says “As the self of a person who tries to attain self-realization is not different from him and as there is nothing other than or superior to him to be attained by him, self- realization being only the realization of one’s own nature…etc.

James: I think this statement should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand what enlightenment is. Ramana makes it very clear that it is not about being different from what you are or getting something that is better than what you already have—like a high state of consciousness. He uses a very interesting word here—only—to make the point that incredible spiritual experiences or altered states of consciousness or transforming oneself is not enlightenment. He says it is ‘only’ realizing what you are.

Interviewer: But isn’t this realization something unique?

James: No. What is being realized might be considered unique if you had been ignorant for a long time, but this realization is no different from realizing or understanding or knowing anything. When it happens, there is always a sense of irony because it is something that has always been known. What could be more familiar to you than you? It may seem like a big deal because something that is so obvious can easily be taken for granted and forgotten. So Self realization is always a re-discovery, not a discovery.

Interviewer: So this is the whole cosmic joke idea.

James: Yes. To solve the riddle you need a trick, a technique, which Ramana calls inquiry or viveka. You need to be reminded that you are eternal, that nothing can be added to or subtracted from you, that experience is impermanent and that you need to start paying attention to your own mind and its ideas to the contrary.

Then you get to work dismissing them. As long as you hold erroneous views about yourself, you will not hold the right view about yourself.

Interviewer: Which is that you are whole and complete.

James: Yes, that experience depends on you, but that you do not depend on experience. That nothing can affect you. That you don’t need anything at all to make yourself happy.